8 June 2015: The Secretariat for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD 3) launched a blog highlighting perspectives and policy recommendations related to the Conference agenda. Contributions from experts and officials seek to inform the substantive preparations and negotiations in the lead-up to FfD 3, which convenes in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 13-16 July 2015.

Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, notes in ‘Sailing on the same boat’ that, in order for the three upcoming events – UN summit on the post-development agenda, Paris Climate Change Conference, and FfD 3 – to succeed, diplomats must change their mindsets and understand their responsibility to defend not only their national interests but also their global interests. He adds: “Since we are all now sailing on the same boat, let us pick the best captain and crews to manage all our key global institutions.” As an illustration, he observes that the West could “give up its minority domination” of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and allow their leadership to be be chosen through a global, meritocratic process. This would ensure that the institutions’ financing agendas reflect global, not sectoral, interests.

An article from Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director, Oxfam International, highlights the global availability of sufficient finance. It must be allocated fairly, however, alongside systemic international change in policy areas that affect public and private finance, such as taxation, aid and climate change. She calls for a renewed commitment to “old solutions” such as ambitious commitments on tax-based financing. She expresses support for the creation of an intergovernmental, universal tax body to prevent tax evasion and avoidance and harmful tax competition, and to ensure tax cooperation between governments.

Gail Hurley, UN Development Programme (UNDP), and Jos Verbeek, World Bank Group, write that different definitions, methodologies, sources, and overlap make it difficult to gain a complete and accurate picture of international financial flows with the current institutional arrangements. To successfully implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they call on international financial institutions and the UN to “make sure we can accurately count what international finance is going where,” and call for FfD 3 to result in a commitment to harmonize data on international financial flows.

In a post from May, Jeffrey Sachs, Guido Schmidt-Traub, and Aniket Shah of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) note that FfD 3 deliberations should be guided by an understanding of financing needs in major SDG investment areas, such as health, education, sustainable infrastructure, agriculture, climate change adaptation and ecosystem services. They also suggest that governments consider: 1) a Global Fund for Education building on the Global Partnership for Education; 2) adequate financing for health systems by mobilizing an additional US$10 billion through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Gavi, or another pooled financing mechanism; 3) a major financing effort in support of smallholder agriculture and nutrition by strengthening the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and/or the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP); 4) closing the financing gap for major infrastructure initiatives, particularly for Africa; 5) a commitment to finance the data revolution; and 6) building on existing mechanisms to launch a multilateral process to systematically track all development finance flows, including international public finance, South-South Cooperation, private flows, domestic resource mobilization, and other instruments.

The Financing for Development Office in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) serves as the FfD 3 secretariat. [FfD 3 Blog] [FfD 3 Website]