As the countdown to the Fourth Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville 2025 begins, CESR joins forces with civil society to put forward a powerful agenda for financial transformation. Through UN-led conventions on tax, debt, and development cooperation, and key reforms to International Financial Institutions, CESR and allies are pushing to create a rights-based global finance system that prioritizes people and the planet over profit.
By: Charlotte Inge, CESR Fellow, and Mahinour El Badrawi, CESR's Co-Director of Program.
As momentum builds toward the 4th Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville 2025, CESR joined other stakeholders at the United Nations in New York this October for a critical dialogue. The FfD process has been an essential space for addressing global economic governance since the first FfD conference in Monterrey in 2002. Subsequent conferences—in Doha (2008) and Addis Ababa (2015)— have built on this foundation through varying degrees of ambition and success. The road to Seville provides a historic opportunity to establish a more equitable, rights-based financial system.
As an active member of the Civil Society FfD Mechanism, CESR and partners worldwide have published a comprehensive collective submission outlining numerous demands for a just global financial architecture. We are calling for the establishment of three major UN conventions: a Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation to address tax havens and corporate tax abuse; a Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt to tackle unsustainable and illegitimate debt; and a Convention on International Development Cooperation, including mechanisms to fulfill the trillions in unmet “aid debt” owed to the Global South.
In addition, we advocate for several essential UN-led mechanisms: a review and transformation process for International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of public-private partnerships and blended finance on human rights and development, an international public credit rating agency to balance the influence of private agencies, a coordinated multilateral agreement to end Investor State Dispute Settlements, and a global technology assessment mechanism to address the impacts of digital finance and technologies on society and the environment.
The United Nations, with its core mandate to address critical global issues and the fact that it is neither debtor nor creditor itself, is the only inclusive multilateral and democratic space that has the legitimacy to discuss and agree on these reforms. This is particularly crucial to move away from donor clubs and towards a more even terrain for addressing global challenges.
We're also demanding that Member States:
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Assess systemic risks posed by unregulated or adequately regulated financial sector instruments and actors
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Ensure fiscal space and scale up international cooperation for decent jobs and universal social protection in line with SDGs and ILO standard
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Ensure human rights and gender equality as cross-cutting framing.
More details on the complete set of civil society proposals can be found in the CSO checklist for Member States. Below, we delve into four critical proposals from this collective agenda that are central to CESR’s work.
International tax cooperation: agreeing on a UN Framework Convention
A cornerstone of CESR’s advocacy is the call for Member States to engage meaningfully in the process of the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNTC) and endorse its Terms of Reference. The UNTC should address critical issues, including corporate taxation, fair allocation of taxing rights, and the vital links between tax policy and human rights obligations.
Building on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda’s commitments, we are pushing for a renewed emphasis on progressive, gender-responsive tax systems that address systemic imbalances, which have shifted taxing rights unfairly away from developing countries. These systems should work to reduce inequalities both within and between countries and support the fulfillment of states’ environmental and human rights obligations, including women’s rights.
International financial institutions (IFI): creating a UN-led reform process
The current IFI architecture perpetuates power imbalances that undermine democratic principles and sustainable development. As argued by our Co-Director of Program, Mahinour El Badrawi, during the Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue, we cannot expect these institutions to reform themselves meaningfully.
We're calling for Member States to agree on a UN intergovernmental process to review and transform the governance and mandate of IFIs and MDBs. This process is crucial because it will mandate a systemic approach to reform rather than allowing institutions to continue ineffective self-directed changes. IFI transformation must abandon the outdated one-dollar, one-vote structure, create more inclusive and accountable institutions, and ensure a rights-based approach to development.
Sovereign debt: agreeing on a UN Framework Convention and immediate debt cancellation
The global debt crisis severely constrains countries' ability to invest in essential public services, social protection, and climate action in the Global South, as governments are forced to divert critical resources to service unsustainable debt obligations. The current debt architecture, characterized by exclusionary, profit-driven resolution processes, prioritizes debt servicing at the expense of human rights, sustainable development goals, gender equality, and climate action.
We're calling Member States to make two crucial commitments: First, to create a UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt to prevent and resolve debt crises. This Convention, negotiated and agreed by all Member States, could deliver inclusive, accountable, and equitable debt restructuring and cancellation to enable countries to fulfill their human rights obligations, achieve the SDGs, ensure gender equality, and implement necessary climate actions. It could also establish binding principles for responsible lending and borrowing and promote legislation for transparent debt governance in both lender and borrower countries.
Second, we're calling for a commitment to immediately cancel all unsustainable and illegitimate debts from all types of creditors, consistent with states' human rights obligations. This cancellation must be unconditional, eliminating harmful loan conditionalities that divert crucial resources from ensuring sustained fulfillment of fundamental human rights, SDGs, and climate action.
A convention for international development cooperation
International development cooperation is key for states to fulfill their duty to cooperate for the realization of rights. Official Development Assistance (ODA) remains critical for supporting countries’ development needs. However, its use has increasingly shifted away from its original purpose, often being diverted to leverage private finance, provided as loans, or used for debt-related solutions, undermining its effectiveness in addressing critical needs and inequality.
We’re calling on Member States to establish a UN Convention on International Development Cooperation to shift the center of development cooperation away from donor clubs towards a more democratic terrain. The Convention could establish a framework to hold Global North states accountable for their unfulfilled historical commitments, recognizing the trillions in unmet aid commitments as ‘aid debt’. Most critically, it could establish a mechanism for fulfilling these obligations while ushering in democratic, rights-based, and equitable governance of development cooperation.
What’s next?
The Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue represents just one step in a crucial process leading up to FfD4. Following the first preparatory session in July 2024 and October's dialogue, the process continues with two more preparatory sessions: one in New York City this December and another in February 2025. These meetings will build momentum toward the conference in Seville (June 30 - July 3, 2025).
We will continue working with partners, including in the coordinated space at the FFD CSO mechanism, at each of these preparatory steps leading to Seville to push for our demands, ensuring that the outcome document reflects the urgent need for systemic reform in the global financial architecture.