Global Financial Reform Addresses Challenges Facing Developing Nations: UN Deputy Chief

Wednesday, 11 December 2024, 10:37 pm
Press Release: UN News

3 December 2024

The four-day meeting at UN
Headquarters began with discussions on international debt
architecture, feminist fiscal policy for Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and global tax
reform.

“The SDGs have stalled,” Ms. Mohammed said,
emphasising that their revival depends on “unlocking the
scale and quality of finance required to power investments,
loosening the grip of debt service that is crippling dozens
of countries and protecting economies from external
shocks”.

Preparation for Seville Conference
2025

This preparatory meeting, which follows a first
session in Addis Ababa in July, has already generated nearly
300 stakeholder contributions ahead of the main conference
scheduled for June 2025 in Seville, Spain.

These
inputs have informed an Elements Paper containing proposals
for transformative change across the Addis action areas,
which will be central to discussions at the main conference
next year.

Key proposals for financial
reform

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Ms. Mohammed outlined several key proposals
under consideration. A central focus is domestic resource
mobilisation, which she described as “the core of
development financing and the compact between citizens and
states”.

One concrete proposal calls for ensuring
all developing countries can raise their tax-to-GDP ratio
above 15 per cent. The conference is also tackling the
challenge of private investment mobilisation.

“After
10 years of billions-to-trillions discussions, we still
don’t see results at the scale or impact required,” Ms.
Mohammed emphasised, calling for firm commitments “to do
better on blending: to focus on impact, to utilise
instruments at scale and to align with national
priorities”.

Reforming financial
architecture

The Deputy Secretary-General also
highlighted the FfD4’s important role in fulfilling the
vision articulated in the recently adopted Pact
for the Future on financial architecture reform. Ms.
Mohammed called for “bold ambition to create a debt
architecture that truly empowers sustainable
development”.

Proposals for this include
“expanding the capital bases of Multilateral Development
Banks” she said.

The conference also aims to
transform Special Drawing Rights to make them more effective
for future crises response.

Concrete action needed in
the future

A key focus will be strengthening the
voice and representation of developing countries in
International Financial institutions. “This would be real
and transformative change,” Ms. Mohammed
said.

Additionally, she stated that “we must pledge
concrete actions to strengthen the voice and representation
of developing countries in International Financial
Institutions, ensuring that they become genuinely inclusive
and more effective”.

The Deputy Secretary-General
also called on participants to “push boundaries” and
ensure that reforms match the ambition needed for the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted nearly a
decade ago.

“Together, let us honour our 2015
commitments for a more sustainable, peaceful and prosperous
world for all,” she
concluded.

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