22 September 2014: The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) hosted an expert group meeting to discuss views on the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD), which will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in July 2015. Subjects of discussion included: the role of public-private partnerships; climate financing; official development assistance (ODA); private investment; and regulatory reform.

The SDSN Meeting on Financing for Development took place on 22 September 2014, at Columbia University in New York, US.

Jeffrey Sachs, Director, SDSN, explained that the negotiations for the Third FfD conference will be complicated, as they are intended to underpin a broader post-2015 development agenda. He encouraged participants to discuss what these negotiations should include, and said their inputs will be formulated into a paper of recommendations for governments.

Mansur Muhtar, World Bank, and Co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (ICESDF), presented the Committee’s report, which focuses on incentives to scale up development resources and diverse financial flows. He said the Committee agreed there is no simple policy solution, but a menu of options and a holistic vision of finance are needed.

On public-private partnerships, participants discussed the need for including producers in the organizational structure of such partnerships, and the need for government to provide risk capital for early innovators. On climate financing, it was stressed that the current ODA system is not suited to provide global public goods, and a more multi-stakeholder platform that goes beyond national boundaries and generations is needed. Participants also discussed the high degree of fragmentation from small funds and initiatives supporting climate finance, with experts calling for predictable and stable financing partners.

On development finance, multiple participants called for scaling up existing initiatives, rather than a creating new programs. Domestic resource mobilization was highlighted as a key financial need of the post-2015 development agenda, along with the need for public funds to be provided where it is difficult to mobilize private sector funds. On regulatory reform, experts stressed that international financial governance and the fairness of financial flows must be greatly improved. Participants called for a more effective use of resources, particularly in eliminating wasteful subsidies and corruption.

SDSN plans to compile these inputs into a paper of FfD recommendations. [SDSN Website] [ICESDF Website] [IISD RS Sources]