From 13th to 16th July Heads of State and Government, and Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation will gather for the third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3), taking place in Addis Ababa, to adopt an inter-governmentally negotiated and agreed upon outcome. Whether it succeeds or fails in setting the right path towards establishing the just and healthy economies needed to make the Sustainable Development Goals possible, and form the basis for a world where gender justice and environmental sustainability are possible and in which the respect, protection and fulfillment of human rights are a lived reality for all people, is highly dependent on how the structural nature  of the problems at hand will get prioritized and taken up. For economic justice to be realized, the current draft outcome (released on May 7th 2015)  proposed towards this high level conference needs to change to be transformative and work towards redressing the imbalances between corporate and public power, as well as inequalities resulting from  ‘North – South’ relations.

In the eve of an official regional forum on sustainable development, the Arab citizen organizations proposed alternative strategies. The NGO Network for Development (ANND), in collaboration with the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and with the participation of the Civil Society Division in the League of Arab States, spelled out policy alternatives and submitted them to the governments. Read here the "Alternative Development Strategies for Post-2015: Exit from the Current Policy Approach".

Contrary to the prevailing image, Africa is a net exporter of capital. The United Nations Economic estimates the net financial outflow between the years 1970 and 2008 at around 800 billion US dollars. This is much more than all the official development assistance received by the continent. And the illicit financial outflows from Africa have accelerated  exponentially during the last decade.

This is the conclusion of a high level panel on illicit financial flows that was set up by the African Union. The panel was chaired by former South African president Thabo Mbeki and it was launched in January. Yao Graham, coordinator of TWN-Africa argues that the illicit financial flows are only the tip of the iceberg and a manifestation of an economic system that privileges foreign capital and corporations to the neglect of the interests of majority of Africans and domestic capital.

On October 15, 2014, the Member States of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), hosted at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, approved the “Principles on Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems.” (“RAI” or “RAI Principles”)

In a recent assessment of the principles, the Transnational Institute (TNI) exposes some of the key issues that the RAI Principles needed to address in order to effectively anchor the principles in human rights norms and values with, ultimately, unsatisfactory results.

At the ECOSOC Dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the United Nations development system, Social Watch coordinator Roberto Bissio said that “partnerships” with private philanthropy or big business should not be seen as a substitute for official funds for the implementation of the UN agenda. While, it is important to entice foundations to spend better and according to UN priorities, the Global Partnership for Development as established since Monterrey is between governments and it is therefore accountable to us citizens.