UN FfD4 conference in Seville: A crucial moment to get finance flowing towards climate and development goals

The UN’s 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) brings together political and financial leaders at a pivotal moment – a decade on from the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and with COP30 approaching – to discuss what must urgently change to get finance flowing for climate and development goals.

Following tense negotiations last week in Bonn, but positive signals from many governments and non-state actors at London Climate Action Week, FfD provides an opportunity for governments to show there is both a collective will and a plan to take action to support developing countries and ensure a more sustainable and secure future.

Against a backdrop of rising debt burdens and donor countries slashing aid budgets and increasingly aligning aid with national interests, the talks in Seville are a chance to:

• Show that there is a way forward tofree up fiscal space in developing countries, including mobilising new debt instruments and a commitment toconsider reprofiling lending terms when necessary for development goals.
• Implement targeted regulatory reforms to mobilise private capital,including by bringing theprivate sector into the centre of development finance by aligning prudential regulation with climate objectives, anduse aid to reducethe risks the private sector faces in deploying capital in unfamiliar places.
• Create a more effective delivery architecture for international finance, including using country platforms to align public and private investment around national priorities and strengthening the role of national development banks and sub-national actors.
• Increase the scale of climate finance, including advancing specific measures to accelerate reform of the multilateral development banks (MDBs) and the international financial architecture and rebuilding political will to commit international public finance for climate and development.
• Support Brazil’s COP30 Presidency in advancing the Baku to Belem Roadmap to $1.3 trillion.

E3G’s new report, Getting on the Path to $1.3 Trillion, launched at London Climate Action Week, sets out a long-term vision across these topics for increasing the mobilisation of finance to developing countries, and provides recommendations for what can realistically be achieved in the next 1-2 years.

Quotes

Rob Moore, E3G Associate Director, Public Banks and Development, said:

“Seville is a chance to show that there is at least a will to support development that underpins international security, prosperity and sustainability. What matters is what happens next – how are these warm words turned into real commitments and outcomes.”