CELAC Summit (Telesur TV).

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), inaugurated in Venezuela in 2011 and comprising all 33 nations of the region, held its third summit in San José, Costa Rica on 28-29 January 2015. The summit also marked the handover of the Presidency of CELAC from Costa Rica to Ecuador. CELAC is an important example of a developing country forum. It serves as a mechanism of dialogue and political coordination.

A broad international group of Civil Society Organizations following the Financing for Development (FfD) process prepare a response to the FFD Elements Paper.

Read the letter here or download the pdf version here.

You are cordially invited to a side-event by the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN, CIDSE and Social Watch on Thursday, January 29, 2015 in the UN Conference Building, New York. Dealing with responsibilities in a financing sustainable development context, this event seeks to generate discussion on conceptual challenges such as an evenhanded approach to the three pillars of sustainable development, adapting a framework like the Financing for Development process to the universal agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals without denaturalizing and decontextualizing it and how to incorporate important principles agreed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

"The sovereign debt of today, particularly in developed countries that are highly indebted, is the results of the irresponsible indebtedness of the private sector that was bailed out with public monies" said Roberto Bissio, Social Watch Coordinator, at the first preparatory session of the Addis Ababa Conference on Financing for Development on January 28, 2015. Bissio therefore suggested that the conference should return to the analysis of EXTERNAL DEBT (including public and private debt) as more appropriate to identify vulnerabilities than the current reduction of the agenda to "sovereign debt".

Further, the Social Watch representative called for the conference to address the link of finances with inequalities and with the transformation of unsustainable consumption and production patterns.

Read his complete intervention below or see the video here or download here the pdf version.

An overwhelming majority of citizens in the 28-member European Union (EU) – which has been hamstrung by a spreading economic recession, a fall in oil prices and a decline of its common currency, the Euro – has expressed strong support for development cooperation and increased aid to developing nations.

A new Eurobarometer survey to mark the beginning of the ‘European Year for Development,’released Monday, shows a significant increase in the number of people in favour of increasing international development aid.

The survey reveals that most Europeans continue to “feel very positively about development and cooperation”.

Additionally, the survey also indicates that 67 percent of respondents across Europe think development aid should be increased – a higher percentage than in recent years, despite the current economic situation in Europe.