The Fourth Conference on Financing for Development concluded recently in Seville, Spain, with a bold call for action to reshape the global financing architecture to support sustainable development at scale. The resulting document, titled the Seville Commitments, reflects some of the pressing concerns of developing countries including calling for a more balanced, responsive, and equitable financial system.

Reforming, rather democratizing, the multilateral development banks (MDBs) and emphasis on enhancing the scale and access to financing for development.

The outcome also much more explicitly recognized disproportionate impacts of climate change, mounting debt challenges, pandemics and how these interconnected challenges manifest and exacerbate financial challenges for developing countries to which Pakistan is also a victim. But as always, the true test lies not in the rhetoric but in implementation.

For countries like Pakistan, still reeling from the economic and human toll of the 2022 floods, the stakes are unquestionably high. Despite being among the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, Pakistan receives less than 0.5% of global climate finance and also ranks low at other forms of concessional development finance.

The Seville Commitments provide an important policy moment but only if translated into real........

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