Dear members and colleagues,
2015 will be crucial for international development.
It’s the end of Millennium Development Goals and the deadline for the 0.7% aid target. The new year will usher in the new post-2015/Sustainable development goalss framework, which needs to be accompanied by a new agenda to finance sustainable development.
I asked CONCORD’s Financing for Development Taskforce to give a recap on our latest work on the subject. Please find an explainer from Jean Saldanha (CIDSE, chair of Taskforce) and Zuzana Sladkova (CONCORD AidWatch/FFD coordinator):
The preparatory process started last year when a group of experts – the ‘Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (ICESDF)’ to be precise- was mandated to draft a report on a sustainable development financing strategy and to achieve the goals.
Last year CONCORD created a Financing for Development Task Force (FfD TF) joined by CAN Europe – a leading environmental NGO network- and Eurodad to follow and influence the whole process. In its latest position, the CONCORD Taskforce encourages the report to put forward the following 11 critical outcomes:
- More domestic resources for sustainable development through progressive taxation and effective international tax cooperation
- The unique and specific role of public domestic and international finance is reinforced
- New public financing sources for development are set up
- A permanent and lasting solution to sovereign debt crises is reached
- Trade and investment is oriented to contributing to states’ human rights obligations and international social, environmental and climate change commitments
- Alternative credible monetary systems are established
- The contribution of private sources of finance to sustainable development is enhanced through regulation
- Foreign direct investment and other financial inflows assessed on quality not quantity
- Development effectiveness principles for the use of public funds to support the private sector are followed
- Developing countries voice and decision-making in international policy and outcomes are made equal to those of developed countries
- Policy coherence is recognised as essential for effective mobilisation and optimal investment of sustainable development finance.
For Jean Saldanha:
“We believe that these basic outcomes will be essential to ensure that finance in all its dimensions (international/domestic, public/private) and the financial systems itself contributes to putting all countries- and the international community- on track to fulfil their commitments to free humanity from poverty and hunger; and ensure the promotion of an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable future for our planet, and for present and future generations;
The Report of the Committee is a strategically important report as it will feed into the Third Conference on Financing for Development taking place in July 2015, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia).
Coordination ahead of such a big event is one of the pillars of success and therefore I call for all interested European CSOs to join the taskforce by writing to Zuzana.sladkova@concordeurope.org. The taskforce will have its strategizing meeting ahead of the conference on 18 November 2014 in Paris.
I look forward to a good collaboration with our members and partners around financing for development and hope I’ll have a chance to meet you all in November in Paris.
Seamus, Zuzana and Jean.