GFDD Attends Key UN Events on Financing for Development

On Friday October 17, 2014, GFDD staff attended two important UN events on the topic of Financing for Development.

The first was a Briefing Session on the Report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing and the second was the First Substantive Information Session of the Preparatory Process for the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development.

The Briefing Session on the
Report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing was moderated by Mr. Alexander Trepelkov – Director, Financing for Development Office, UN DESA and included some key statements by  numerous panel representatives which included:Thomas Gass, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs in UN DESA;Mr. Mansur Muhtar – Committee Co-Chair, World Bank Executive Director for Nigeria, Angola, South Africa; H.E.
Mr. Pertti Majanen – Committee Co-Chair, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland; H.E. Mr. Geir O. Pedersen -Permanent Representative of Norway, Co-facilitator of the preparatory process for the third International Conference on Financing for Development; H.E. George Wilfred Talbot -Permanent Representative of Guyana, Co-facilitator of the preparatory process for the third International Conference on Financing for Development; Prof. Stephany Griffith-Jones -Columbia University;  and Ms.
Eva Hanfstaengl Policy Officer for Development Finance Bread for the World.

Mr. Gass introduced the report by stating that he found it to provide a comprehensive analytical framework for sustainable development in an integrated manner. He highlighted that it gave policy options for both the public and the private sector taking account of the complimentary nature of both sources of financing. He concluded by stressing that partnerships to achieve
sustainable development (i.e on issues such as trade and industry) would be indispensable for the success of the post 2015 development framework.

Presentation of the Co-Chairs:
Mr. Muhtar provided an overview of the report. He stressed that country leadership would be key. He pointed to the need for effective policies and institutions as being critical to the success of this framework, with a strong need for synergies and
accountability. Mr. Muhtar explained that the report contained 150 policy recommendations in different areas including suggestions on how to enhance domestic public financing through increased international tax cooperation, how to attract greater foreign direct investment and recommendations on leveraging the risks of financing by sharing these between the public and private sector. He explained that the report emphasized the need for states to repeat past Official Development Assistance
(ODA) commitments and to agree on an institutional approach that would monitor and enhance accountability of states in relation to these commitments.

Mr. Pertti Majanen called for the private sector to make stronger commitments since not much had happened since they were invited to provide their input into the process as part of the Monterrey Consensus in 2002. Mr. Majanen
concluded his input by highlighting the important role that international institutions, such as the UN and the World Bank, would play in implementing the financing for sustainable development agenda in developing countries with smaller resources.

Inputs by Further Speakers
Ambassador Pedersen and Ambassador Talbot, as co-facilitators of the preparatory process for the third International Conference on Financing for
Development commented that the report was not important solely for its recommendations on sources of finance but also for the institutions and frameworks that would be required to make it work.

Critiques of the report:
Prof. Stephany Griffith-Jones of Columbia University  commented that the report builds effectively on the Monterrey Consensus, but that the remaining challenge would be how to actually mobilize the
financing required to achieve the targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Ms. Eva Hanfstaengl, Policy Officer for Development Finance at the German non-profit organization Bread for the World worried that the report lacked bold proposals and was too realistic at this stage, running the risk of becoming a watered down document by the time of adoption. Ms. Hanftaengl was also concerned  that too little attention had been paid to the
role that Small Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) could play in this framework and worried about the lack of recommendations regarding regulation of private sector companies. She explained that an opportunity for gaining further financing which had not been discussed in the report was the possibility of a private sector financing tax.

Publication:
The Official Report is available as a UN Document
(A/69/315) at http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/315&Lang=E;

The second meeting was the First Substantive Information Session of the Preparatory Process for the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development moderated by H.E. Mr. Geir O.
Pedersen -Permanent Representative of Norway and H.E. George Wilfred Talbot -Permanent Representative of Guyana, co-facilitators of the preparatory process for the third International Conference on Financing for Development.

About the Conference:
The moderators confirmed that the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development  would be located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and take place from
the 13th to 16th July 2015.

Turning to the participants of the conference, they confirmed that it would gather high-level political representatives, including Heads of State and Government, and Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation, as well as all relevant institutional stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and business sector entities. The aim of the conference would be to result  in an intergovernmentally negotiated and agreed
outcome, which should constitute an important contribution to and support the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda.

The scope of the Conference (is set out in General Assembly resolutions 68/204 and 68/279) was confirmed as being:

(1) Assessing the progress made in the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus and the Doha Declaration and identifying obstacles and constraints encountered in the achievement of the goals
and objectives agreed therein, as well as actions and initiatives to overcome these constraints;

(2) Addressing new and emerging issues, including in the context of the recent multilateral efforts to promote international development cooperation, taking into account:

• the current evolving development cooperation landscape;
• the interrelationship of all sources of development finance;
• the synergies between financing objectives across the three dimensions of sustainable development; and
• the need to support the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015;

(3) Reinvigorating and strengthening the financing for development follow-up process.

Statements by UN Representatives
President of the General Assembly: H.E. Mr. Sam Kahamba
Kutesa
Ambassador Kutesa stressed that ODA is an important source of financing for many developing countries but that it is not sufficient for achieving the post 2015 development agenda (i.e. to combat persistent issues such as illicit flows or upholding partnerships).

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
The Secretary General stressed that we need to agree on a transformative post 2015 development agenda and a
transformative climate agenda in Paris. He noted that significant financing will be required to achieve these important milestones. For this reason he explained that the 3rd Conference on FfD will be a major stepping stone for the success of the Post 2015 development agenda to be adopted in September 2015. He concluded his statement by underlining that Official Development Assistance (ODA) will not be sufficient, and that public and private flows will be necessary too.

Statements by UN Member States:
Several member states pointed to the fact that although we should encourage the inclusion of private sector finance, with multi-stakeholder partnerships considered key for the post 2015 development agenda, ODA should still be highlighted as the most important source of finance for development and should therefore be mentioned specifically in the official declaration of the conference.

Many member states, including the USA, highlighted the importance of innovation as being relevant to stimulating public and private finance. For this reason they stressed that the topic of “data” deserved a dedicated session during this conference, as a standalone topic.

Underscoring the forthcoming UN General Assembly meeting taking place in September 2015 during which the Post 2015 development agenda would be approved, member states also
pointed to the need for synergies between the work of experts of the intergovernmental process on this issue, in particular the reports of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals and that of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing, so as to achieve a comprehensive development agenda.

Finally states emphasized the need for civil society representatives to be included in the meetings of the conference and that time be
allotted during the conference for interaction with civil society representatives.

Background documents on Financing for Development:

• Report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (A/69/315)
• Report of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (A/68/970)
• Report of the Secretary-General on "Follow-up to and implementation of the Monterrey Consensus and Doha Declaration on Financing for Development"
  (A/69/358)
• Report of the Secretary-General on "International financial system and development" (A/69/188)
• Report of the Secretary-General on “International trade and development”
  (A/69/179)
• Report of the Secretary-General on "External debt sustainability and development" (A/69/167)

Related links:
http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/third-conference-ffd/index.htm
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/315&Lang=E;