We have not seen the broad transformation that we need, to achieve the SDGs by 2030, – said Inga Rhonda King, President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at the opening of the Forum on Financing for Development, held this week at the UN’s headquarters in New-York.
The ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development follow-up (FfD Forum) is an intergovernmental process with universal participation mandated to review the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (Addis Agenda) and other finance for development outcomes and the means of implementation of the SDGs. The ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development (E/FFDF/2018/3) gathers together officials from ministries of finance, foreign affairs, and development cooperation, Executive Directors of the World Bank and IMF, as well as senior officials from the UN system, including the major institutional stakeholders, civil society, local authorities, and business sector.
The Forum sets the benchmark for sustainable investments and SDGs’ financing for the year ahead.
The main message line of the 2019 FfD Forum is that we need more progress on SDGs and more money to support the progress. Uneven economic growth, rising inequalities and as a result, uneven progress towards the SDGs moves financing the SDGs to the center of the international agenda.
The 2019 FfD Forum, as the centerpiece of the FfD follow-up process, has been tasked to: review the implementation of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda since 2015, and forge consensus among increasingly divergent views and spread policy know-how to advance implementation. It will build momentum toward the first quadrennial high-level dialogue on financing for development, which will take place in September 2019, back to back with the HLPF at summit level.
In accordance with paragraph 132 of the Addis Agenda, the annual FfD Forum results in intergovernmentally agreed conclusions and recommendations that are fed into the overall follow-up and review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development. In addition, the Forum will identify critical areas for attention and further discussion during the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development. As usual, the ECOSOC President will prepare an official summary of the Forum as an input to the HLPF.
On April 10, 2019,SDWatch provided a short summary of the 2019 Report of Financing for Sustainable Development,that underscores the need to revisit and shape global financial architecture and develop national financial frameworks that are responsive to global a local societal challenges and needs. The concrete steps, recommended in the Report, to overhaul the global institutional architecture and make the global economy and global finance more sustainable, include: supporting a shift towards long-term investment horizons with sustainability risks central to investment decisions; revisiting mechanisms for sovereign debt restructuring to respond to more complex debt instruments and a more diverse creditor landscape; revamping the multilateral trading system; addressing challenges to tax systems that inhibit countries from mobilizing adequate resources in an increasingly digitalized world economy; and addressing growing market concentration that extends across borders, with impacts on inequality.
See the program of the 2019 Forumandthe Concept Note of the FfDin order to get inspirations for your studies and research.
