Looking forward: How can the FfD Follow-up live up to its full potential?

The Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) has defined the follow-up process for the Financing for Development process as well as the means of implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This includes assessing progress, obstacles, challenges as well as new and emerging topics of relevance, and “provide policy recommendations for action by the international community” (para. 131). At a side-event during the 2018 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development Follo-up, participants are invited to provide their insights into their assessment of previous FfD Fora, their link with other international processes, and discuss with participants about opportunities and challenges, also with view to the upcoming High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development of the General Assembly in 2019. The format of the side event will be highly interactive. After a short framing presentation, the moderator will facilitate active dialogue with a small panel of respondents and the audience.

Download here the flyer of the event.

Side-event during the 2018 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development

April 26, 2018 – 1:15pm | Conference Room A | UNHQ, New York

Co-organized by the Civil Society FfD Group (including the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Germany).

Facilitated by: Global Policy Forum, MISEREOR, Social Watch, Brot für die Welt and Society for International Development

After three fora—from 2016 to 2018—it is time to assess if they have managed to live up to their full potential. Some of the challenges raised by observers have been:

• Is the current FfD follow-up process providing an adequate framework not only to assess progress but also to identify and remove obstacles to implementation?
• How can the normative tasks and challenges outlined in the AAAA be clearly spelled out, programmed and tackled? These include, inter alia, elaborating on the principles for blended finance and public-private partnerships included in the AAAA (para. 48); “work towards a global consensus on guidelines for debtor and creditor responsibilities in borrowing by and lending to sovereigns” (para. 97); and “strengthen international cooperation to support efforts for the mobilization of domestic resources” (paras. 20ff).
• How can the FfD follow-up process be reinvigorated for it to provide a vibrant space to identify, assess and tackle cross-cutting, structural and systemic issues as well as emerging new risks that may hinder progress towards sustainable development?
• Is the link between the FfD Forum and the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development close enough to deliver meaningful outcomes strengthening the Addis outcomes as well as the means of implementation for the 2030 Agenda? What could be done to improve this link and mutually reinforce both processes?

At the side-event, participants will be invited to provide their insights into their assessment of previous FfD Fora, their link with other international processes, and discuss with participants about opportunities and challenges, also with view to the upcoming High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development of the General Assembly in 2019. The format of the side event will be highly interactive. After a short framing presentation, the moderator will facilitate active dialogue with a small panel of respondents and the audience.

Participation is open to everybody attending the 2018 FfD Forum (for which registration/a UN grounds pass is required).

Please rsvp by sending a short e-mail to europe@globalpolicy.org