{"id":1405,"date":"2025-07-15T14:23:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/2025\/07\/the-sevilla-consensus-youre-on-your-own-kid\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T19:28:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T19:28:55","slug":"the-sevilla-consensus-youre-on-your-own-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/2025\/07\/the-sevilla-consensus-youre-on-your-own-kid\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sevilla consensus: \u201cYou\u2019re on your own, Kid\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cYou're on your own, kid \u2026.
Yeah, you can face this \u2026.
You're on your own, kid \u2026.
You always have been \u2026.\u201d
\u2014Taylor Swift<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the closing ceremony of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, last July 3 in Sevilla, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed delivered a sobering statement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab \u2026For decades, the mission of sustainable development has united countries. Yet today, development and its great enabler \u2014 international cooperation \u2014 are facing massive headwinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last four days (\u2026) the human consequences of rising debt burdens, escalating trade tensions, and steep cuts to official development assistance have been brought into sharp relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, we understand all too well the collateral damage that competing government priorities can have on development finance, and that global support for sustainable development can no longer be taken for granted. \u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since her job requires to convey faith in the multilateral system of the UN, she found some solace in that the outcome document \u00abupholds the commitments from Addis Ababa ten years ago and seeks to rekindle the sense of hope embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals \u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upholding old commitments that were never met is a poor compensation for the lack of any substantial progress in the key issues of the FFD agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On official development assistance (ODA) the conference committed to \u00ab reverse declining trends \u00bb (paragraph 36b) and reaffirmed the fifty-year-old commitment \u00ab by most developed countries \u00bb (the US never agreed to that target) to achieve 0.7% of gross national income for ODA to developing countries and between 0.15 and 0.2 per cent to the least developed countries. The problem is that only half of that target was ever reached in half a century, and major cuts in assistance budgets have been announced by the US, Germany, the UK and France, among others. Simultaneously, European military budgets are doubling, expected to reach 5% of GDP in most of Europe, except notably Spain, the host country of the Summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On external debt, the outcome document recognizes that \u201csovereign debt challenges have become one of the greatest obstacles to realizing sustainable development,\u201d (paragraph 47) but instead of starting work on a sovereign debt workout mechanism as developing countries requested, it vaguely promises to \u201cinitiate an intergovernmental process at the United Nations, with a view to making recommendations for closing gaps in the debt architecture and exploring options to address debt sustainability\u201d (paragraph 50f).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On trade, the \u00ab Compromiso de Sevilla \u00bb (a title that translates as \u00ab Sevilla Commitment \u00bb, though many critics ironically call it \u00ab Compromise \u00bb) acknowledges that \u00abtrade restrictions, including tariffs inconsistent with WTO rules, principles and commitments, are on the rise globally amid rising trade tensions and stalling multilateral negotiations \u00bb. The conference makes the usual, likely ineffective, calls to respect old commitments. One of the few concrete decisions was support for \u00ab updating and reforming outdated investment agreements \u00bb and a call for \u00ab the establishment of an advisory centre on international investment dispute resolution \u00bb, to help countries reform investor-State dispute settlement mechanisms in trade and investment agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the international financial architecture, the Conference again recognized the need for reform but declined to assert a major UN role in ensuring that Bretton Woods Institutions' decisions align with human rights and development principles. It reaffirmed \u00ab full respect for the respective mandates and governance bodies of different international institutions \u00bb. Since the US has veto power in those institutions, all further \u201cencouragements\u201d for more voting power for emerging countries are likely to go unheard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On domestic finances, the conference acknowledged the importance of fair and progressive taxation to mobilize national resources and committed governments \u00abto engage constructively in the negotiations on the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation \u00bb, following demands initiated by African countries. However, it avoided supporting the Human Rights Council process for a binding legal instrument on transnational corporations and human rights. Legally established corporations remain a major source of illicit financial flows out of Africa \u2014 flows that far exceed the total amount of official development assistance received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survival of multilateralism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many commentators argued that merely reaching a consensus agreement was a major achievement for multilateralism, at a time when some countries are imposing their will through military and economic power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, consensus was only reached because the US, after rejecting the entire draft, decided to abandon the process at the last minute rather than force a vote. According to Bhumika Muchala from TWN, \u00ab the role of the US in the negotiations has been publicly reported, in terms of aggressively blocking and requesting deletions across entire paragraphs of the document \u00bb. Meanwhile, the European Union and other developed countries \u2014 including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and the UK \u2014 also pushed back throughout the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With no substantial results and no alliances from the Global North, the message to developing countries sounds eerily like the chorus of Taylor Swift\u2019s song: \u00ab you\u2019re on your own, kid! \u00bb
What remains to be seen is whether the Global South, like the singer, will find its voice, rise above despair, and realize that by joining forces \u2014 \u00ab you can face this! \u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Roberto Bissio, coordinator of Social Watch.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.un.org\/sg\/en\/content\/deputy-secretary-general\/statement\/2025-07-03\/deputy-secretary-generals-remarks-the-closing-ceremony-of-the-finance-for-development-4-conference-delivered<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/docs.un.org\/en\/A\/CONF.227\/2025\/L.1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/docs.un.org\/ar\/A\/CONF.227\/2025\/L.1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/twn.my\/title2\/finance\/2025\/fi250703.htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is part of ANND\u2019s newsletter<\/a> on FFD meetings in Sevilla.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou're on your own, kid \u2026.Yeah, you can face this \u2026.You're on your own, kid \u2026.You always have been \u2026.\u201d\u2014Taylor Swift At the closing ceremony of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, last July 3 in Sevilla, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed delivered a sobering statement: \u00ab \u2026For decades, the mission of sustainable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,143],"tags":[219,220],"class_list":["post-1405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-social-watch-news","tag-noticias-de-social-watch","tag-social-watch-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1414,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions\/1414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}