The recent Financing for Development conference, or FfD4, in Spain produced the Compromiso de Sevilla, which marked a crucial consensus among 192 countries despite the more complex global environment compared to the last FfD conference 10 years ago.
That’s according to Marcos Neto, U.N. assistant secretary-general and assistant administrator at the United Nations Development Programme, who spoke to Devex about the critical outcomes of the Compromiso de Sevilla and the path forward for financing development and climate change initiatives.
Neto stressed that the agreement’s core purpose is implementation and accelerating existing initiatives, rather than focusing on shortcomings. He also highlighted that the Compromiso advances the agenda agreed to at the FfD conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a decade ago, significantly boosting the integration of climate and biodiversity concerns.
A central theme Neto underlined was the indispensable role of private finance. He acknowledged the need for robust evidence of its effectiveness in vulnerable developing countries, but stressed that private capital is crucial due to insufficient public and official development assistance funds, noting that a $4.3 trillion annual gap to reach the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals needs to be filled.
During the conversation, the U.N. assistant secretary-general also discussed how domestic resource mobilization could unlock crucial funding for global development initiatives.
Watch the full interview via the link.
About the authors
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
Thomas Cserep
Thomas Cserép is an Associate Editor who manages and oversees Devex's social media presence, coordinates Devex’s audience outreach, and produces the This Week in Global Development podcast. Prior to Devex, he worked as a freelance journalist, with his writings appearing in a variety of publications, including Get Spanish Football News and the magazine of the Hungarian Geographic Society.
