At the beginning of July, a once-in-a-decade conference took place in the South of Spain, in a boiling-hot Sevilla. The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) offered a much-needed space to discuss ways to improve the global financial architecture and mobilize resources for the sustainable development agenda.
However, the weather was not the only source of heat that was felt in the small Andalucian city, which suddenly found itself hosting around 10 thousand people including Heads of State, Ministers and high-level country representatives from around the world, as well as an almost equal number of police agents brough in from all over the country.
Conversations in and outside the building were hard, thought-provoking, confronting, challenging with honest, and often uncomfortable, discussions about the urgent need to transform a global financial system that continues to perpetuate inequality and injustice. The expectations for the Fourth Financing for Development Conference were in fact high, with many hoping it would mark a turning point toward ambitious, systemic reform. The outcome however, was less ground-breaking, accompanied by a generalised disappointment for what was considered a missed opportunity to go a step further towards a much-needed global systemic change.
Countdown 2030 Europe showed up with a strong delegation, including partners from Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, France and the EU. For us, being there wasn’t just strategic, it felt like a moral obligation. With everything happening globally, in such a fast-changing and hostile context for international cooperation and sexual and reproductive health and rights, it was important to show up and to keep SRHR and gender equality at the heart of financing debates, as prerequisites for sustainable development and the basis for a more just, equal, healthy and prosperous world.
After a full week of rich and intense exchanges, there are four key areas that struck us and where we feel that deeper reflection and urgent action is critical:
- In case you didn’t notice…we live in an unjust, extractive and colonial global financial system. If we truly care about ensuring that everyone on Earth reach their full potential, we must look at the bigger picture: increasing ODA alone, while remaining key, will not do the trick, especially when for instance in 2023 African countries received less international cooperation assistance from Global North countries, than the amount of debt they paid back to them, and when 3 billion people live in countries which are cutting education, health and basic services to repay debt. Reforming the global economic and financial system from the perspective of debt justice, tax justice and re-imagining a more equal international development cooperation structure is an absolute urgency, if we want to start increasing the fiscal space to enable more domestic resource mobilisation and stop seeing growing inequalities within and across countries.
- Let’s remind ourselves: money is there… but priorities are elsewhere. Just days after the NATO Summit in The Hague, where States committed to raise defence spending up to 5%, this truth was plain to see. When something is deemed a priority, the money follows. As SRHR and gender equality advocates, we must be sharper in exposing the myth of scarcity. It’s not a question of resources—it’s a question of political will. We need to recognize that true security includes personal safety, health, rights, and dignity for all. Instead of continuing to shield profit from the powerful few, leaders must re-align priorities. Because where priorities go, funding follows.
- Shrinking space for Civil Society is a painful reality even within UN processes. Throughout the lead-up to FfD4, civil society had repeatedly voiced concerns over the lack of transparency of negotiations and unprecedented limited role given to CSOs in official spaces. That exclusion continued even during the conference programme, highlighting the dramatic lack of recognition of the crucial watchdog role civil society actors play as powerful accountability agents and key counter-power for governments and global institutions. The hostility of official spaces towards CSOs and activists bordered censorship with several incidents of participants being asked to remove stickers, pins or flags from their bags and personal belongings before being admitted inside the conference centre. This calls for an increased need to be vigilant and to keep owning the space we are rightfully claiming, beyond Sevilla.
- Different worlds joined in Sevilla… but are we walking together out of it? Stepping in a predominantly economic and financial space as SRHR advocates, we definitely put ourselves out of our comfort zone. We walked the extra mile to build bridges across sectors instead of talking within our own echo-chamber and preaching to the choir. But on the spot, the result felt not very different from what we wanted to avoid: it almost seemed we were talking next to each other, having parallel conversations without truly reaching the other side. We felt this distance between civil society, on the one hand, and financial mechanisms and private sector on the other. But we felt it at times even within civil society, between Global South and Global North actors, particularly around revindications towards how to transform the global financial system. We all must do better, and showing up for us was a positive first step. Difficult, sometimes frustrating, but necessary as we see the urgency to continue reaching out to stakeholders and sectors we don’t systematically connect with and getting out of our bubble. We are confident this is the right way to make lasting progress, because ‘if you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, you’d better go together’.
FfD4 wasn’t the breakthrough moment many of us hoped for, with SRHR and gender equality largely sidelined. It represented a mirror for a concerning reality, reflecting the deep fractures and the power imbalances we face in the world. But we were there, we showed up united as an SRHR and gender equality movement, we brought our issues and people to the table and pushed through. And we left more committed than ever. To continue reaching out, building bridges, getting out of our comfort zone and bringing other stakeholders also out of their own comfort, by challenging them with new transformative ideas. We will keep working toward a world that is fairer, more inclusive, more just, and healthier for all. Having set the SDGs together, we’ve shown what’s possible—and we can once again lead the way by transforming how we finance the change we want to see.
Words by Federica Signoriello and Chiara Cosentino, Countdown 2030 Europe
Illustration: Ulas Eryavuz
Missed our IG Live? We’ve got you covered.
🎥 Catch the full recording of our powerful conversation with:
• Dr . Stellah Wairimu Bosire (Africa Center for Health Systems and Gender Justice)
• Dina Chaerani (YIELD Hub)
• Federica Signoriello, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
We unpacked:
⚠️ The impact of global solidarity cuts on sexual and reproductive rights
📉 What the UN’s Financing for Development Conference outcomes mean for feminist movements
💡 How to reimagine funding models that centre equity, youth, and the Global Majority
