More and better development financing

The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) will take place in Seville in June 2025. This is against the backdrop of massive delays in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, not least due to deficits in development financing. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) financing gap, which was estimated at US$ 2.5 trillion in 2015, has not been closed or reduced over the last decade. Instead, it has grown to over US$ 4 trillion annually. In addition, the decade since the adoption of the final declaration of the Third International Conference on Development – the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) – has been characterized by multiple crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, the growing climate crisis, a global sovereign debt crisis and escalating conflicts. There is no end in sight to the worsening crises. Expectations are high that the FfD4 conference will produce concrete results against this difficult backdrop.

For this briefing paper, various analyses by experts and position papers by stakeholders in the FfD process were scrutinized. As a summary, the central challenges of the FfD process are outlined, along with practical action options that can be considered and adopted at the Sevilla conference.