2025: A Milestone Year for Development Financing!
In a world of widening inequalities, intensifying climate shocks, ongoing conflicts, and global crisis of trust in institutions, the current international financial system is no longer fit for purpose. This system steers economic policymaking, debt agreements and access to money for development, but its choices still reflect the interests of powerful elites, while many people are not just left behind — but systematically pushed there.
Following last year’s pivotal Summit of the Future — where the UN SDG Action Campaign proudly supported civil society and youth participation — 2025 must be the year of action. Implementing and strengthening the commitments made in the Pact for the Future, including reforming the global financial architecture, is now more urgent than ever.
This is why, in 2025, the UN SDG Action Campaign will continue advocating for economic justice and the building of an economic system that is fair, inclusive, and capable of rebuilding trust — both between nations and between governments and their citizens.
Among the many necessary reforms, the Campaign prioritizes debt justice. Today, 3.3 billion people — roughly 40% of the global population — live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on education or healthcare. Addressing this crisis requires strengthening the multilateral debt architecture and ensuring that states can meet their human rights obligations.
This year, the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) — taking place from 30 June to 3 July 2025 in Seville, Spain — presents a critical opportunity to accelerate the reform of the international financial architecture and make it fit for purpose in a crisis-prone world.
As the only inclusive global process dedicated to advancing the systemic reforms needed, the FfD process is a platform where all voices matter. Do not miss your chance to contribute!
Apply for Special Accreditation to participate the Conference before 21 February 2025!
Third Preparatory Committee Session for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development | 10–14 February 2025, New York
The Third Preparatory Committee Session for FfD4 (3rd PrepCom) taking place from 10 to 14 February 2025 at the UN HQ in New York provides a key opportunity to review the zero draft of the FfD4 Outcome Document. Participants can contribute their priorities and recommendations to help shape an ambitious, action-oriented outcome that fosters stronger political commitment and global ownership.
More than 50 side events hosted by stakeholders — including Member States, UN agencies, international financial institutions, academia and civil society organizations — will enrich the dialogue with diverse insights and approaches, offering innovative solutions for financing sustainable development.
Watch live the 3rd PrepCom side event “Finance for all: Solutions from Local and Regional Government” | 12 February 2025, New York
The 3rd PrepCom side event “Finance for all: Solutions from local and regional government” organized by the United Cities and Local Governments, Global Taskforce of local and regional governments, UNDESA, UNDP and UNCDF will explore the role of the local financing and discuss concrete solutions that local and regional governments propose ahead of the FFD4.
The UN SDG Action Campaign Global Director, Marina Ponti joins the event as a panelist alongside distinguished speakers such as Paul Smoke, Professor of Public Finance and Planning at NYU, Caroline Lombardo, the UN-DESA Chief of International Tax and Development Cooperation, Navid Hanif, the UN-DESA Assistant Secretary-General and Marcos Neto, the UNDP Assistant Secretary-General among others.
Watch the event live on UN WebTV on 12 February 2025 from 13.15 EST to 14.30 EST.
Watch live the Civil Society Townhall with the President of the General Assembly at its 79th Session | 12 February 2025, New York
The overarching theme of the 79th General Assembly Session is Unity in Diversity for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for everyone everywhere.
The Civil Society Townhall on 12 February 2025 from 11.00 to 13.00 EST, organized by the UN Department for Global Communications will feature a discussion with H.E. Mr. Philemon Yang, President of the UN General Assembly on his priorities and civil society engagement as well as the implementation of the Pact for the Future and upcoming UN communication priorities.
Watch the Townhall live on UN WebTV.
2025 IPU Parliamentary Hearing at the United Nations | 13–14 February 2025, New York
Following the adoption of the Pact for the Future, the International Parliamentary Union is organizing a Parliamentary Hearing at the United Nations on the theme of Scaling up action for the Sustainable Development Goals: Finance, Institutions, and Politics, which will take an in-depth look at ways to reboot the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs.
The UN SDG Action Campaign Global Director Marina Ponti will participate in the panel on Parliamentary oversight of the SDGs: The unfinished business of institutionalization on 13 February 2025 from 11.45 to 13.00 EST. The discussion will provide space for critical reflections on institutionalizing the SDGs in parliaments as a key step towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Watch the Parliamentary Hearing live on UN WebTV from 11.45 EST to 13.00 EST.
2025 Jubilee Year
As 2025 has been declared a Jubilee Year, interfaith leaders are calling on the international community to take urgent action to address mounting debt levels and pave the way for hope and renewal.
Read the Interfaith Africa Religious Leaders “Heralding a Debt Jubilee in 2025” Statement which advocates for “a new debt Jubilee to bring hope to humankind, and to bring the planet back from the brink of becoming uninhabitable” as Africa spends $90 billion annually servicing public debt.
Additionally, Pope Francis has addressed this crisis in his statement, “Addressing the Debt Crisis in the Global South,” calling for a multinational mechanism to break the cycle of debt financing. His Holiness emphasizes the global nature of the issue and urges a solution that considers its economic, financial, and social implications.
Caritas Internationalis, together with faith-based and civil society organizations, invites all people to join their campaign, Turn Debt into Hope.
Seventh Intersessional Meeting on Human Rights and the 2030 Agenda | 11 February 2025, Geneva
This Intersessional Meeting of the Human Rights Council entitled “Leaving no one behind: the role of human rights in reforming the sovereign debt architecture and going beyond GDP” will build on the outcomes of the SDG Summit and Summit of the Future.
Discussions will evolve around how human rights norms and standards can guide the global debt architecture review called for in The Pact for the Future, and how human rights and gender equality can support the process of developing a framework for measuring progress that goes beyond gross domestic product.
You can register for the event here and watch the Live Webcast on via UN WebTV on 11 February between 10.00 and 17.00 CET.
Oxfam Inequality Report — Takers Not Makers
As 1.1 billion people face multidimensional poverty every day, total billionaire wealth increased by US$2 trillion in 2024. Published on 20 January 2025, Oxfam’s latest annual inequality report, Takers Not Makers: The unjust poverty and unearned wealth of colonialism explores systemic inequality which is deeply rooted in historical and structural barriers that perpetuate exclusion across societies. Check the report to learn about the underlying reasons for the two-tier world and ways forward.
ActionAid Briefing: Who Owes Who?
This briefing illuminates the stark injustice built into today’s global economic system. It argues that climate debts and reparations for slavery and colonialism owed by rich countries by far outweigh the total debts low and lower-middle income countries are forced to repay today.
In this Jubilee Year, it is therefore particularly important to take steps towards a reform of the international financial architecture, including through a UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt.
Global Risks Report 2025
The 2025 Global Risks Report reveals an increasingly fractured global landscape. Pressing issues including inequality, misinformation and polarization are featured in both the two-year and 10-year risk rankings.
The report shows the centrality of addressing today’s growing inequality, which experts perceive as the most interconnected risk of all, to regain the declining trust of citizens and restore social stability.
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By Mohammed Mostafa, Communications Analyst and Multimedia Producer, UN SDG Action Campaign
