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U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the Global Civil Society
Forum
held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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This week, the United
Nations is holding the third International Conference on
Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. One of the major
development conferences this year, Addis will likely see new initiatives,
commitments and partnerships all geared toward its overarching goal: finance
the sustainable development goals.
Devex
is on the ground at the headquarters of the U.N. Economic Commission for
Africa, talking to high-level representatives from donor agencies,
nongovernmental organizations and the private sector. We’ll provide continuing
updates on the buzz from the weeklong meetings on this running blog, so check
back regularly.
What we know so far:
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The Addis Tax Initiative is launched to support domestic resource mobilization.
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The ONE Campaign is launching data.org.
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation commits
to creating a Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance Network, or
CHAMPS, as well as building a Global Health Analytics Platform.
●
The European Union joins Power Africa, and pledges to allocate 2.5 billion
euros ($2.8 billion) in grants from the 2014-2020 budget to support power
generation and electricity access across sub-Saharan Africa.
●
The Islamic
Development Bank has increased funding for activities related
to the SDGs to $150 billion in the next 15 years, almost double the amount it
spent for the MDGs.
●
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data will be launched, and
the United States will be a founding member.
●
The Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development and U.N.
Development Program launched a new initiative that will provide
tax audit assistance to developing countries.
●
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund announced
a joint initiative aimed at strengthening tax systems in developing countries.
Civil society organizations meanwhile are wary that the creation of an intergovernmental regulatory body on taxes may
not materialize.
●
Major international financial institutions announced plans to make $400 billion
available in the next three years to finance sustainable development goals.
●
The Gates Foundation committed $75 million to the World Bank-managed
Global Financing Facility Trust Fund to tackle maternal and child health. This
and additional commitments by other bilateral donors bring total mobilized
resources for the cause under GFF to $12 billion.
●
Canada invests $40 million to jump-start a new partnership between GFF and the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which aims to mobilize
private sector resources for maternal, newborn and child health.
Updates
10:38 p.m., July 15
An agreement has been reached
After
a lengthy debate into the night an agreement has been reached at the third
International Conference on Financing for Development. The Addis Ababa Action
Agenda was agreed to by the 193 U.N. member states in attendance.
The
United Nations called the agreement a “milestone in forging an enhanced global
partnership” in a statement, but civil society didn’t quite see it that way.
U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that the agreement is a
critical step forward.
“The
results here in Addis Ababa give us the foundation of a revitalized global
partnership for sustainable development that will leave no one behind,” he said
in the statement.
Members
of civil society are disagreeing with that assessment.
The
Action Agenda contains more than 100 concrete measures and addresses multiple
sources of finance and covers a range of issues, including technology, science,
innovation, trade and capacity building.
Among
the key issues highlighted in the document are commitments about domestic
resource mobilization and aligning private investment with sustainable
development in part by setting the right incentives.
But
what’s missing — and what had stalled negotiations — is the creation of a U.N.
global tax body. As a result, the OECD will continue to be the
intergovernmental body that adopts global tax standards.
Civil
society organizations, which were pushing for the tax body, are disappointed in
the outcome.
“The
decision is an appalling failure and a great blow to the fight against poverty
and injustice,”ActionAid’s international tax power
campaign manager Martin Hojsik said in a statement. “It means that developing
countries, which are losing billions of dollars a year to tax dodging, are not
being given an equal say in fixing unjust global tax rules.”
Civil
society representatives criticized the deal as the powerful developed countries
not wanting to cede power to other countries.
“Rich
countries decided to maintain a system where money goes from south to north,
but the rules follow the opposite route,” said Pooja Rangaprasad of the
Financial Transparency Coalition.
Civil
society also expressed concerns that the negotiations were not conducted in
good faith and didn’t give developing countries a true voice, which sets a bad
tone for the post-2015 and climate negotiations.
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