Sadly, unlike the lack of media coverage, and very little discussion of policy circles on this – both on the government, and opposition sides, and in the academic arena – the ‘4th International Conference on Financing for Development’ (FFD4) holds utmost importance.

This is because it is not only taking placing after ten years, but at a time when both adequate level of finance for fighting the existential threat of climate change crisis is urgently needed, and also when it is very important to deal with fast brewing sovereign debt crisis in a number of developing countries, including Pakistan.

Moreover, while the first conference in this regard took place well back in 2002, called the ‘2002 Monterrey Consensus’, which placed responsibility on international community to provide finance for international economic development under a comprehensive global framework, it was in the second such conference, the ‘2008 Doha Declaration’, that other aspects in the shape of gender perspectives and financing for dealing with climate-related issues were also made part of its agenda.

Debt and climate — I

Later on, the third edition of this conference, the ‘2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda’ enhanced the scope of financing to include ‘economic, social and environmental’ concerns, and to view them in an integrated way, considering at the same time, the needs of financing for meeting ‘2030 Agenda and the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals]’ that were prepared in parallel to this conference.

It is important to note that due to weak multilateral spirit – which was also amply seen during the Covid-19 pandemic in the shape of practice of ‘vaccine nationalism’, and through lack of provision of development finance to deal with the urgent needs of the pandemic, and without compromising on meeting the SDG –there has been very slow progress on evolving an effective framework for finance globally for not only providing sustainable finance, both in terms of quantity and conditions, so that developing countries, in particular those that are also highly climate challenged, are not pushed to take on a lot of loan.

Nevertheless, the level of debt globally has increased to an astronomical level, especially in developing countries over the last few years, whereby resolution of a serious global debt issue is one of the main objectives of the FFD4. In December 2024, the United Nations Secretary-General formed an ‘Expert Group on Debt’ to provide an informed analysis to FFD4 so that proper deliberation could take place in this regard in this Conference, which took place during June 30 – July 3.

The Report from this expert group titled ‘Confronting the debt crisis: 11 actions to unlock sustainable financing’ while highlighted that ‘The global financing landscape has evolved significantly, and not in favor of the developing world’ and that ‘Instead of funding schools and hospitals, or job creation, developing countries are trapped in a vicious cycle of rising interest payments and shrinking fiscal space, privileging their debt service payments over their investment for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).’

Moreover, the Report while rightly highlighting the severity of debt crisis pointed out: ’What has been called a “silent” debt crisis is silent no more. Across the Global South, debt burdens are not only reducing prospects for economic growth and long-term resilience but are also crushing sustainable development. In 2023, 38% of developing countries - nearly half of which were located in Africa - spent over 10% of their government revenues on........

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