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Japan Times
9 hours ago
- Business
- Japan Times
Blistering heat and empty chairs mar U.N.'s flagship development event
Brutal heat scorched Spain this week, a blistering reminder of the climate change that is battering the world's poorest countries — stretching their finances even as government debt climbs to new heights. But at a once-a-decade U.N. development finance conference in Seville, two key ingredients were in less abundance: money and power. Just one Group of Seven leader — French President Emmanuel Macron — attended the event, where he and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez addressed rooms with dozens of empty chairs. Organizers initially said they expected 70 heads of state; that was whittled to 50 as the conference got underway. Back in Washington, Paris, London and Berlin, rich-country leaders are slashing aid and cutting bilateral lending in a pivot to defense spending and rising debt at home. "The mood is ... I would say realistic, but also a sense of unity and of pragmatism," said Alvaro Lario, president of the International Fund of Agricultural Development, adding that the question on everyone's mind this week was how to do more with less. "How can we come together, or think out of the box, or create new type of ways of really stretching it more?" The Financing For Development meeting is a flagship U.N. conference, charting the trajectory to help tackle changes the world must make to tax policies, aid spending or key areas such as debt, health and education. Its outcomes guide global aid funding and U.N. policies for the decade to come. Few disagree over the need for action. Hundred-year floods and storms are happening with alarming regularity, and rising debt-servicing costs are siphoning money away from health, education and infrastructure spending in the developing world. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez delivers a speech during the close of the U.N. conference in Seville on Thursday. | AFP-Jiji But even top developing-world leaders such as Mia Mottley, the Barbados prime minister and a prominent global climate champion, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, currently chairing the Group of 20 major economies, backed out of the event at the last minute. The media room was stacked with Spanish press gossiping about a domestic political scandal while disillusioned civil-society leaders stalked the halls, upset with the watered-down agenda and the lack of fiscal or political firepower. "We are facing a backsliding of many agendas that we had advanced a few years ago," said Henrique Frota, director of ABONG, a Brazilian association of NGOs. "Developed countries are reducing their investment in (official development assistance) and European countries are not fulfilling their commitment ... they are giving less and less money right now for every kind of agenda." Event leaders were relieved to produce an outcome document — despite gnawing fears in the past months that Washington would torpedo any deal. In the end, U.S. officials backed out altogether. "The entire community was very afraid of coming here because one country wasn't attending," said U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Marcos Neto. "But the document ended up working out ... I'm leaving happy, with more optimism than I thought I would leave with." Neto highlighted significant steps toward implementing climate and development goals, including the Seville Platform and multiple agreements from public and private sectors to leverage funds for the biggest possible impact. A woman carries an umbrella near Las Setas during a heat wave in Seville on July 2. | REUTERS The Seville Commitment included tripling multilateral lending capacity, debt relief, a push to boost tax-to-gross domestic product ratios to at least 15%, and get more rich countries to let the International Monetary Fund use "special drawing rights" money for countries that need it most. But in Seville, only host nation Spain signed on to commit 50% of its special drawing rights funds for the purpose. U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed acknowledged that the attendance was not as star-studded as hoped, and that public funds are under pressure. "But there's innovative financing, there's the private sector, there's the triple lending of MDBs... so the resources are there," she said, referring to multilateral development banks. "We just have to have the political will to leverage through these mechanisms that have come out of the platform of action and continue moving with them." U.S. President Donald Trump, despite his country's absence, loomed large over the event; his climate change skepticism, hostility toward diversity initiatives and pledge to review U.S. participation in multilateral organizations made some keen to strip out references to climate change and rebrand initiatives as focused on resilience, education or health. Still, some said the gloomy backdrop should not deter leaders focused on progress. "Ultimately the important thing is doing it," said Jose Vinals, a former group chairman of Standard Chartered and cochair of both the FFD4 Business Steering Committee and the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance. "The private sector is, for the most part, still willing to walk the talk."
Reuters
12 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Blistering heat, empty chairs and the C-word mar UN's flagship development event
SEVILLE, July 4 (Reuters) - Brutal heat scorched Spain this week, a blistering reminder of the climate change that is battering the world's poorest countries - stretching their finances even as government debt climbs to new heights. But at a once-a-decade UN development finance conference in Seville, two key ingredients were in less abundance: money and power. Just one G7 leader - France's Emmanuel Macron - attended the event, where he and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez addressed rooms filled with dozens of empty chairs. Organisers initially said they expected 70 heads of state; that was whittled to 50 as the conference got underway. Back in Washington, Paris, London and Berlin, rich-country leaders are slashing aid and cutting bilateral lending in a pivot to defence spending and rising debt at home. "The mood is ... I would say realistic, but also a sense of unity and of pragmatism," said Alvaro Lario, president of the International Fund of Agricultural Development, adding the question on everyone's mind this week was how to do more with less. "How can we come together, or think out of the box, or create new type of ways of really stretching it more?" The Financing For Development meeting is a flagship UN conference, charting the trajectory to help tackle changes the world must make to tax policies, aid spending or key areas such as debt, health and education. Its outcomes guide global aid funding and UN policies for the decade to come. Few disagree over the need for action; hundred-year floods and storms are happening with alarming regularity, and rising debt-servicing costs are siphoning money away from health, education and infrastructure spending in the developing world. But even top developing-world leaders Mia Mottley, the Barbados prime minister and prominent global climate champion, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, currently chairing the Group of 20 major economies, backed out of the event at the last minute. The media room was stacked with bored-looking Spanish press gossiping about a domestic political scandal while disillusioned civil-society leaders stalked the halls, upset with the watered-down agenda and the lack of fiscal or political firepower. "We are facing a backsliding of many agendas that we had advanced a few years ago," said Henrique Frota, director of ABONG, a Brazilian association of NGOs. "Developed countries are reducing their investment in (official development assistance) and European countries are not fulfilling their commitment ... they are giving less and less money right now for every kind of agenda." Event leaders were relieved to produce an outcome document - despite gnawing fears in the past months that Washington would torpedo any deal. In the end, U.S. officials backed out altogether. "The entire community was very afraid of coming here because one country wasn't attending," said UN Assistant Secretary General Marcos Neto. "But the document ended up working out ... I'm leaving happy, with more optimism than I thought I would leave with." Neto highlighted significant steps toward implementing climate and development goals, including the Seville Platform and multiple agreements from public and private sectors to leverage funds for the biggest possible impact. The Seville Commitment included tripling multilateral lending capacity, debt relief, a push to boost tax-to-GDP ratios to at least 15%, and get more rich countries to let the IMF use "special drawing rights" money for countries that need it most. But in Seville, only host nation Spain signed on to commit 50% of its "Special Drawing Rights" for the purpose. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed acknowledged that the attendance was not as star-studded as hoped, and that public funds are under pressure. "But there's innovative financing, there's the private sector, there's the triple lending of MDBs ... so the resources are there," she said. "We just have to have the political will to leverage through these mechanisms that have come out of the platform of action and continue moving with them." U.S. President Donald Trump, despite his country's absence, loomed large over the event; his climate change scepticism, hostility toward diversity initiatives and pledge to review U.S. participation in multilateral organizations made some keen to strip the "c-word" - climate change - and rebrand initiatives as focused on resilience, education or health. Still, some say the gloomy backdrop should not deter leaders focused on progress. "Ultimately the important thing is doing it," said Jose Vinals, former group chairman of Standard Chartered and co-chair of both the FFD4 Business Steering Committee and the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance. "The private sector is, for the most part, still willing to walk the talk."
The Independent
2 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
UK accused of hypocrisy at landmark UN foreign aid conference
The UK has been accused of 'hypocrisy' over its lack of high-level participation at a key global development finance summit, on top of cuts to Britain's aid budget – while talking up its role in helping lower-income nations. The accusations have been made at the fourth Financing for Development Conference (FfD4), a once-a-decade summit happening all week in Seville, Southern Spain, where delegates are aiming to tackle the perennial problem of how to help developing countries access the money they need. Thirty-two African countries currently spend more on debt repayments than on healthcare, and 25 African countries spend more on debt payments than on education, an issue that activists say needs urgent action. Some 50 world leaders are due at FfD4, including Emmanuel Macron of France, Mark Carney of Canada, and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. The UK, however, has only sent a government minister in the form of Baroness Chapman, the international development minister. 'A level of ambition from the UK government would have been demonstrated clearly by sending higher level participation such as the prime minister or Foreign Secretary,' Lydia Darby, a senior policy advisor at Save the Children, told The Independent. Ahead of fDf4, writing in The Independent, Baroness Chapman called for a 'new era for global aid and development', that would see developing countries helped in building their own tax systems, and greater investment in developing countries from the private sector, among other measures. Hannah Bond, Co-CEO at ActionAid UK, said that it is 'hypocritical' for the UK to talk about 'fair finance' while cutting overseas aid. 'If the UK truly cares about fair finance, it must honour its overseas aid commitments, tackle unfair debts, and pay its fair share in addressing the climate crisis,' Bond said. 'Without this, talk of fair finance is nothing more than empty PR.' Baroness Chapman's appearance comes off the back of the UK cutting its foreign aid budget from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) - which is expected to reduce foreign aid by £6.2 billion by 2025. Alex Farley, from advocacy group Bond, said that it is 'impossible' to see how the UK can deliver on existing funding commitments, respond to humanitarian crisis, and tackle climate change, following he 0.5 to 0.3 per cent cut. 'Let alone undo the damage these cuts have done to our reputation and credibility with countries,' he added. 'It would be nice to hear the government expressing regret for its cuts to the aid budget, rather than blithely claiming that they are somehow doing developing countries a favour,' Michael Jacobs, from the think tank ODI, told The Independent. Mr Jacobs added that the claim that private sector money can substitute public funds is 'silly at best, disingenuous at worst'. This is because 'the private sector wants returns, while much aid - for health, schools, sanitation, climate adaptation - doesn't make a profit, so is not investable', he said. Catherine Pettengell, executive director of NGO network Climate Action Network UK concurred that the UK had 'failed to sufficiently support developing countries' calls for fairer debt, tax, international cooperation, and climate finance ' in build-up to the conference. 'It's a crushing blow that only compounds the recent UK aid cuts,' she added. Attendees of FfD4 say, however, that it is not all doom and gloom in Seville. The final agreement of the talks - the Compromiso de Sevilla - was in fact agreed to just ahead of this week's conference. According to Save the Children's Ms Darby, there is notably positive language on matters including international tax cooperation and an agreement to initiate an intergovernmental process on debt. 'The document is an important step with plenty to build on in the months and years to come,' Darby said - though she acknowledged it has inevitably fallen short of 'the transformative ambition that civil society and vulnerable communities worldwide had called for'. While the UK, along with the EU, has been accused of watering down key priorities for low-and-middle-come countries, these countries have at least contributed much more positively than the US, which withdrew from talks ahead of the conference over the refusal from the rest of the world to delete the goal of 'sustainable development' from the text.
CNN
11-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
On GPS: Bill Gates is giving away $200 billion over the next two decades
This week billionaire Bill Gates announced he is giving away $200 billion through the Gates Foundation — including 99% of his own wealth — over the next 20 years. Why is he doing this? Fareed sits down with Gates to discuss this radical decision and how it will impact global aid over the next two decades.
CNN
11-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
On GPS: Bill Gates is giving away $200 billion over the next two decades
This week billionaire Bill Gates announced he is giving away $200 billion through the Gates Foundation — including 99% of his own wealth — over the next 20 years. Why is he doing this? Fareed sits down with Gates to discuss this radical decision and how it will impact global aid over the next two decades.
