February 10, 2025

Towards an ambitious FfD4 Conference: Civil Society Response to Zero Draft

This side event provided an opportunity for member states and civil society to assess the current FfD4 Outcome Zero Draft, including its challenges and opportunities towards ensuring an ambitious outcome at the 4th FfD conference in Sevilla. It included reactions to all Zero Draft thematic pillars and proposals, including and particularly addressing cross-cutting themes as gender and climate. A feminist perspective and the upholding of climate and ecological integrity are core to the global economic governance issues that must be addressed towards FfD4.

Date: Mon, Feb 10, 2025

Time: 1:15-2:30PM NY-time

Venue: CR-3 / Online via UN Web Tv

Moderator: Chenai Mukumba, Tax Justice Network Africa

Speakers

Zainab Shumail, APWLD
Maria Jose Romero, EURODAD
Ranja Sengupta, Third World Network
Mae Buenaventure, APMDD
Vitalice Meja, Reality of Aid Africa

The current lack of ambition of the FfD4 Outcome Zero Draft document is concerning. As Civil Society FfD Mechanism, we have been calling for a 4th Financing for Development (FfD) conference under the auspices of the UN, as it remains the only place where Global South countries are at the table with an equal voice and vote on global economic governance matters that profoundly shape their economies and societies. However, the risk of missing this major opportunity for profound transformation of the systemic failures of the international financial and economic system not only affects our present, by failing to address deep inequalities within and between countries. It also directly affects future generations and the sustainability of life and livelihoods for all, particularly those in the intersections of multiple inequalities.

The past decade of the 2030 Agenda has only shown business-as-usual and has not delivered internationally agreed commitments of the Sustainable Development Goals. Amidst the current polycrisis, women of the Global South continue to be the backbone of the global economy through their unpaid care work, while bearing the brunt of a widening gender gap and inequalities, informalisation of work, as well as increasing gender-based violence in both domestic and workplaces.

The climate emergency is real and a systemic global threat to humanity, and it will become even more devastating as global temperatures keep rising. It disproportionately affects countries least responsible for historical GHGs emissions, and impacts historically marginalized and discriminated groups the most. It is clear that there is a need to go beyond climate finance, promoting a reform of the IFA that seriously takes into account a logic of ecological integrity in every dimension of the economic and financial architecture. This demands an understanding of how the current economic model drives a series of ecological harms, and the ways in which a systemic transformation should be led bearing in mind the urgency at hand.