CS FfD Mechanism's SIDE EVENTS at the 2024 ECOSOC FfD Forum

Please join us at the Side-Events organized by the

Civil Society FfD Mechanism

Stay tuned to this page for updates on speakers!

4th FfD Conference: Civil Society Expectations and Perspectives

📅Date: Monday, 22 April 2024

🕰️Time: 1:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. NY time

Venue: Conference Room 12 UNHQ, NY

Description of the Event

Moderator: Stefano Prato ( Society for International Development)

Speakers:

• Bhumika Muchhala (Third World Network)

• Iolanda Fresnillo (Eurodad)

• Dereje Alemayehu (GATJ)

• Jennifer del Rosario-Malonzo (IBON International)

FfD4 should provide the political space for global systemic reforms that can expand the
policy and fiscal space of the Global South to realise the Right to Development and advance the 2030 Agenda. The event will aim to provide a historical context to the FfD process, including an overview of previous FfD outcomes. It will also be an opportunity to learn more about the civil society proposals for reforming the international financial architecture such as (among others):

• Establish a multilateral legal framework under the auspices of the UN that would
  comprehensively address unsustainable and illegitimate debt, including through
  extensive debt cancellation.

• Agree on a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation to
  comprehensively address tax havens, tax abuse by multinational corporations and
  other illicit financial flows.

• Establish a UN member-state led process on ODA decision-making, possibly in the
  form of a UN Convention on International Development Cooperation, which should
  also facilitate the fulfilment of the trillions in unmet aid debt owed to the Global South
  across the decades.

• Elaborate a multilateral agreement for a coordinated and permanent termination of
  Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms that has empowered
  transnational corporations to sue governments in confidential tribunals on a range of
  issues including debt, tax and increasingly climate action.

• Regulate credit rating agencies (CRAs), including through further exploring proposals
  such as establishing an international public credit rating agency at the UN.

Connecting the Financing for Development Agenda and the Landlocked Developing Countries Priorities

📅Date: Monday, 22 April 2024

🕰️Time: 1:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. NY time

Venue: Conference Room 9 UNHQ, NY

Description of the Event

This side event will bring together the UN, member states, private sector, civil society and other stakeholders to discuss the essential links between the priorities of the Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) and the Financing for Development Agenda.
With the Third UN Conference on the Landlocked Developing Countries taking place in Kigali, Rwanda from 18-21 June 2024, and its 2nd Preparatory Committee Meeting taking place from 29 April to 1 May 2024, this event is an opportunity to ensure the key priorities of both the FFD Agenda and the LLDCs programme of action (currently being negotiated) are aligned towards creating meaningful outcomes.

The agendas overlap in several important areas, namely in Trade, Foreign Direct Investment (and domestic investment), Science, Technology and Innovation, International Public Finance and Debt. Having expert stakeholders from the UN, Member States and Civil Society in the room together will help to bring the most salient ideas, opportunities and approaches to implementation of these issues in LLDCs.

The aim is for the discussions of the event is to raise awareness and generate momentum in support of the priorities of LLDCs especially in the context of the LLDC3 Conference, with a special focus on the perspectives of civil society stakeholders.

Towards a More Democratic International Public Finance Architecture

📅Date: Wednesday, 24 April 2024

🕰️Time: 1:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. NY time

Venue: Conference Room C UNHQ, NY

Description of the Event
The current international public finance architecture is clearly failing to provide necessary resources for countries to finance their developmental needs. According to the dominant narrative, public finance is inherently insufficient, and thus requires promotion of private finance to advance sustainable development. Most rich countries that dominate decision-making on aid flows through the OECD and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have supported the increasing use of scarce concessional finance to leverage private finance, including blending. The recent adoption of new rules for the reporting of Official Development Assistance to allow for private sector instruments to count as aid is also an example of this trend. This dominant approach promoted by both rich countries and MDBs, however, raises many concerns on unequal benefits, unintended impacts, measurement, and regulation. While rich countries and multilateral institutions promote private finance-centric approaches, they evade their own public finance commitments for development and climate needs.

A structural and democratic reform of the international public finance architecture is therefore urgently needed. This could include conversations to establish UN member-state driven processes to lead on decision-making on aid and international development cooperation. A democratised architecture that is inclusive, accountable, and founded on measurable, time-bound, and enforceable indicators could facilitate the fulfilment of the trillions in unmet aid debt owed to the Global South across the decades.

FfD4: Time for Ambition for a Multilateral Legal Framework on Debt Under the Aegis of the UN

📅Date: Wednesday, 24 April 2024

🕰️Time: 1:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. NY time

Venue: Trusteeship Council Chamber, C UNHQ, NY

Description of the event
The COVID-19 pandemic, the sluggish performance of the global economy coupled with high interest regimes, and the climate emergency have acutely increased the urgency for
addressing unsustainable and illegitimate debt and responding to the growing call for debt cancellation. UNCTAD has noted these interrelated and global crises have led to an increase in total government debt (domestic and external) in developing countries, from 58 to 65 per cent of GDP in 2019–2021. At least 108 developing countries have experienced higher levels of debt following the pandemic, with 3.3 billion people living in countries that spend more on interest payments than on education or health as of 2023. The risk of debt crisis is being faced by middle income countries too, aside from low-income countries. As such, mechanisms, processes, and commitments towards debt reduction must also include solutions for middle income countries taking into account peculiarities in their debt situation. Vital public financial resources are being allocated today to external debt repayments at the expense of domestic health, social, economic financing, and climate resilient needs. In Africa, more than half the continent is either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress and is faced with still having to prioritise creditors than its people.

The impact of a creditor centric debt architecture is to lock Africa’s transformation in a perpetual state of dependency. It is evident that current ad-hoc and creditor-centric international initiatives to address the debt resolution are insufficient and existing debt sustainability assessments inadequate, as they disregard human rights, SDGs, gender equality or climate investment needs. The United Nations, with the core mandate to address critical global issues, and the fact that it is neither debtor nor creditor itself, is the only inclusive multilateral and democratic space that has the legitimacy and competence to discuss and agree a multilateral legal framework to prevent, address sovereign debt crises and stop the vicious spiral of debt.

In this context, it is urgently necessary to change gear beyond theatrical discussions on debt sustainability that ultimately only reinforce the status quo. The 4th FfD Conference provides the unique opportunity to establish a multilateral legal framework under the auspices of the UN that would comprehensively address unsustainable and illegitimate debt, including through extensive debt cancellation. The United Nations should also lead on further supervision and regulation of credit rating agencies. FfD4 will provide the opportunity to convene a universal, intergovernmental commission under ECOSOC with a mandate to examine needed international institutional innovations, including in the UN, required to correct and avert the adverse impacts of CRAs on international finance.

FfD4: Democratizing Trade, Financial and Monetary Governance Under the Aegis of the UN

📅Date: Thursday, 25 April 2024

🕰️Time: 1:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. NY time

Venue: Conference Room 12, UNHQ, NY

Description of the event
Over the past period, there has been a progressive erosion of key agreements within the
Monterrey Consensus on issue related to trade, global finance, and systemic issues more
broadly, and their impact on development. This erosion corresponded to the belief by some yet powerful Member States, that trade governance, including on trade and development matters, needed to be entirely devolved to the WTO, while global financial and monetary coordination and regulation be taken up by the Group of 20. Unexpectedly, both have failed to deliver trade, financial and monetary frameworks that are consistent with strong developmental outcomes, the reduction of inequalities between and within countries, and socio-economic transformation in the Global South. On the contrary, their combined action contributed to the consolidation of international economic regimes that severely limit the economic, financial and monetary sovereignty of developing countries, by promoting their unfair and inequitable integration in a system that is governed by a few powerful countries and the institutions they command, in a context of increasing consolidation of unchecked economic power in a handful of transnational corporations.

The emergence of the role of the WTO and the G20 have therefore crowded out the normative role of the United Nations, despite the resistance of UNCTAD to several attempts to undermine its mandate and capacity, also leading to a significant disconnect from the development finance agenda and real economy transformation on one hand, and global finance regulation
on the other. The 4th FfD Conference provides the opportunity to democratize trade, financial and monetary governance and reaffirm the critical role of the United Nations in these domains, particularly from a developmental angle. This may include (among others):

• Review of trade and investment agreements, including at the WTO, regarding their impact on developing countries’ policy flexibility in meeting their development, climate and human rights objectives;

• Agree a multilateral agreement for a coordinated and permanent termination of Investor State-Dispute-Settlement (ISDS) cases;

• Agree on adequate regulation and supervision of financial institutions, credit rating agencies (see below) and hedge funds through a UN framework;

• Establish a global ban on short selling among all markets and increase regulation/surveillance of high frequency trading;

• Define a global agreement on the importance of capital account management to prevent capital flight, limit speculative trading and arrest declines in currency and asset prices