We analyze the importance of the 4th United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville, with five key themes connecting debt, climate and feminism.
From 30 June to 3 July 2025 will take place the 4th United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) bringing together governments from around the world to discuss structural reforms in global economic and financial governance. For the first time, it will be held in a country in the Global North, Spain, in the city of Seville. In this document, we provide a brief introduction to the United Nations Financing for Development process, and then focus on the interconnection1 between specific issues of debt, austerity, climate, tax and corporate-financial power from a feminist and decolonial perspective. Lastly, we explain the options available to all those seeking to get involved in events surrounding the FfD4 Conference in Seville.
What is the United Nations Financing for Development (FfD) process?
The United Nations (UN), as the only global institution in which all countries have an equal voice, is a space where demands such as those for the democratisation of global economic governance and systemic change in global financial architecture are placed on the agenda. Debates and negotiations on economic and financial reform are held as part of the Financing for Development (FfD) process, with regular meetings and major international conferences that take place every six to ten years.
Financing for development has a long history and arises from the grievances voiced in the countries of the Global South regarding the systemic shortcomings and injustices in the international financial architecture. Although international economic cooperation is part of the UN’s mandate, it has been systematically marginalised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), in which the countries of the Global North have a greater proportion of votes, as well as by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – of which said countries have exclusive membership – and the G20. FfD involves governments, multilateral organisations, civil society and the private sector. Civil society is represented by the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism, a working group which has been active since 2008 and which brings together several hundred organisations and networks from around the world dedicated to encouraging civil society participation in the formal UN FfD process and other related spheres.
Why is the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) important?
Reforms covering debt, fiscal policy, private finance, international business and trade, international development cooperation, science and technology, as well as systemic issues such as the reform of the governance of the international financial system, will be part of the official negotiations agenda at the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development. There is both hope and expectation on the part of international civil society, engaged in advocacy in official UN spaces, that the FfD4 Conference will provide significant political momentum towards urgent structural reforms. As part of the process of preparing for the FfD4 Conference, international civil society has produced hundreds of proposals for the FfD4 Elements paper, Zero Draft, and First Draft. For example, this position document by Spanish civil society organizations, and these contributions by the Civil Society FfD Mechanism to the Draft of the FfD4 Outcome Document.
The FfD4 Conference in Seville also stands as a critical juncture for building global networks. Some days prior (exact dates to be confirmed), the Social Forum of the Conference will be held. This is a meeting space for international civil society organisations fighting for the reduction of structural inequalities and for global economic justice, among other causes. The Seville Conference is gaining in importance on the agendas of organisations, groups and movements that do not typically focus their efforts on international financial system reform, but who nevertheless consider current economic governance to be the root of the present polycrisis (which includes the environmental crisis, the climate emergency, loss of biodiversity, the crisis of care, increasing inequalities between countries and social classes, the rise of the extreme right, loss of collective rights, etc.). The Seville Conference has the clear potential to be both a locus and a moment of hope, especially for stakeholders from the Global South and those involved in climate justice and feminist movements, women’s rights organisations and trade union federations who, through the Civil Society Mechanism, will have a collective voice on a global economic-financial stage.
The FfD4 Conference also opens up a pathway in terms of media and communications, offering an opportunity to highlight global economic and financial issues, as well as the faces and stories of those affected both in the Global South and within Spain itself. It is a chance to discuss the structural causes and propose the solutions required to deal with the polycrisis as a matter of global justice. As part of this push, we will delve into five interconnected themes that can help us to enrich the public conversation before, during and beyond the FfD4 Conference: debt and austerity; climate emergency and debt; tax justice and climate funding; international cooperation for development; feminist financing; and ecofeminist transformations.