Raising the FfD4 Ambition: Towards a UN Convention on International Development Cooperation and UN-Member States led MDBs Reform

Time: 1:15-2:30 pm 

The event aims to create space to discuss the proposals for a UN Convention on International Development Cooperation and a UN Member States led reform of the development finance ecosystem. 

• UN Convention on International Development Cooperation: FfD4 offers an opportunity to establish a new normative framework putting international public finance at the heart of a new International Financial Architecture. Such a framework, firmly grounded in the Right to Development, will need to address governance, norms and rule creation; democratise global decision-making spaces; and re-define the purpose, impact and effectiveness of development cooperation. 

• UN-Member States led MDBs Reform: The current international public finance architecture is clearly failing to provide necessary resources for countries to finance their developmental needs. One of the current pillars of this architecture includes IFIs and MDBs’, whose decision-making is dominated by rich countries. At FfD4 member states should agree on initiating a UN intergovernmental process to review and transform the governance and mandate of International Financial Institutions and Multilateral Development Banks, towards more inclusive, transparent, accountable and democratic institutions, with a rights-centered approach to development and a focus on public investment and ownership of public goods, responsive to national and regional dynamics.