UN News/Daniel Dickinson Traders in Madagascar. one of the most under-developed countries in Africa, transport charcoal to market.

Decisive action is needed to address the financial challenges facing developing nations, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said on Tuesday in remarks to the Second Preparatory Committee for the Forth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4).

The four-day meeting at UN Headquarters began with discussions on international debt architecture, feminist fiscal policy for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and global tax reform.

“The SDGs have stalled,” Ms. Mohammed said, emphasising that their revival depends on “unlocking the scale and quality of finance required to power investments, loosening the grip of debt service that is crippling dozens of countries and protecting economies from external shocks”. 

Preparation for Seville Conference 2025

This preparatory meeting, which follows a first session in Addis Ababa in July, has already generated nearly 300 stakeholder contributions ahead of the main conference scheduled for June 2025 in Seville, Spain. 

These inputs have informed an Elements Paper containing proposals for transformative change across the Addis action areas, which will be central to discussions at the main conference next year.

Key proposals for financial reform

Ms. Mohammed outlined several key proposals under consideration. A central focus is domestic resource mobilisation, which she described as “the core of development financing and the compact between citizens and states”. 

One concrete proposal calls for ensuring all developing countries can raise their tax-to-GDP ratio above 15 per cent. The conference is also tackling the challenge of private investment mobilisation.

“After 10 years of billions-to-trillions discussions, we still don’t see results at the scale or impact required,” Ms. Mohammed emphasised, calling for firm commitments “to do better on blending: to focus on impact, to utilise instruments at scale and to align with national priorities”.

Reforming financial architecture  

The Deputy Secretary-General also highlighted the FfD4’s important role in fulfilling the vision articulated in the recently adopted Pact for the Future on financial architecture reform. Ms. Mohammed called for “bold ambition to create a debt architecture that truly empowers sustainable development”.

Proposals for this include “expanding the capital bases of Multilateral Development Banks” she said.

The conference also aims to transform Special Drawing Rights to make them more effective for future crises response.

Concrete action needed in the future

A key focus will be strengthening the voice and representation of developing countries in International Financial institutions. “This would be real and transformative change,” Ms. Mohammed said.

Additionally, she stated that “we must pledge concrete actions to strengthen the voice and representation of developing countries in International Financial Institutions, ensuring that they become genuinely inclusive and more effective”.  

The Deputy Secretary-General also called on participants to “push boundaries” and ensure that reforms match the ambition needed for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted nearly a decade ago. 

“Together, let us honour our 2015 commitments for a more sustainable, peaceful and prosperous world for all,” she concluded.