Addis Ababa: The first Preparatory Committee Conference for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development has been successfully concluded stressing the importance of collective efforts to tackle the global challenges to pave the way for sustainable development financing.
The conference was held from July 22-26/2024 in Addis Ababa as one of the four preparatory sessions to review progresses on Addis Ababa Action Agenda and identifying actions and solutions to accelerate the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The conference was organized to prepare for the upcoming Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development that will be held in Spain in 2025.
The conference mainly discussed domestic resource mobilization, sustainable debt management, addressing systemic issues climate changes and global challenges, innovative financing and strengthening development cooperation during the ministerial and technical segments.
Recognizing the negative impacts of various
global crises on the implementation of the SDGs, the conference stressed the importance of collective efforts to tackle the global challenges to pave the way for sustainable development financing.
Furthermore, the conference also emphasized that correcting macro-economic imbalances through diversification of resources and rapid economic growth driven by reforms and responsive policies are important measures to fix systemic issues.
Increasing climate financing through innovative financing mechanisms has been discussed as crucial step to support mitigation, adaptation and resilience building efforts in response to growing climate change induced calamities.
Resolving the huge debt burden of developing countries was also stressed in the conference. As stated by most of the UN member states, debt service has been narrowing the fiscal spaces of developing countries to invest on basic social services.
In this regard, the importance of debt restructuring and use of strict policy measures for sustainable debt mana
gement were mentioned as way forward actions.
The conference also underscored that improving the capacity of domestic resource mobilization is critical to finance sustainable development. In this regard, digitalizing the tax system and broadening the tax base, leveraging the potential of the private sector through various mechanisms has been stressed as important means to finance sustainable development.
Finally, strengthening multilateralism and development cooperation were underlined as important measures to enhance partnerships and collaboration on the implementation of SDGs and agenda 2030.
Mainly, reforming the international financial institutions to better represent and reflect the views of developing countries as well as honoring the commitments of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and increasing non-concessional funding have been identified as important measure to finance sustainable development.
Hosted by Ethiopia, the conference was attended by more than 850 delegates from UN member states,
including ministers, representatives of UN organizations, regional and international organizations, CSOs and academia.
The participants actively engaged in both ministerial and technical substantive discussions to identify priorities, challenges, and opportunities for sustainable development financing and accelerating the SDGs.
The conference was officially closed by Ahmed Shide, Minister of Finance of Ethiopia, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and the preparatory committee co-chairs.
On the occasion, the minister expressed that Ethiopia is honored by hosting this important international event and he thanked all the participants and the organizers who played critical roles for the successful undertaking of the conference.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency