As the year 2030 quickly approaches, so does the deadline to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals, adopted in 2015, require a significant financial stimulus if they are to be met. Achieving them will ensure that no one individual, community, or country is left behind as the world strives towards development outcomes that can sustain decent living conditions for humankind and the natural world for generations to come.

But the Earth is in the grips of ever-growing threats, including climate change, unprecedented biodiversity loss, chemical and plastic pollution, increasing land degradation, wars and conflicts, supply chain crises, and rising waves of political populism. All of these have an impact on the overall achievement of the SDGs, particularly by threatening the financial flows necessary to fulfil the promise of sustainable development.

To address these threats, world leaders representing trade, foreign affairs, finance, environment, and development ministries have convened three Financing for Development (FfD) conferences over the last 23 years. At the first FfD conference in Mexico in 2002, delegates adopted the Monterrey Consensus, setting the stage for the realignment of financial flow towards global development efforts. The second FfD Conference in Qatar in 2008 took place during the financial crisis. At this meeting, delegations adopted the Doha Declaration, which stressed the need to maintain aid commitments despite global economic uncertainty.

At the third FfD Conference in Ethiopia in 2015, delegates adopted the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, setting out a new global framework for financing sustainable development, aligning all financing flows and policies with economic, social and environmental priorities and ensuring that financing is stable and sustainable.

In 2023, world leaders began preparations for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), which will address new and emerging issues, and the urgent need to fully implement the Sustainable Development Goals, and support reform of the international financial architecture.

The first two intergovernmental Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meetings were held in Addis Ababa in July 2024 and at UN Headquarters in New York in December 2024, guided by UN General Assembly resolutions 78/231 of 22 December 2023 and 78/271 of 11 April 2024. PrepCom 3 continued negotiations on the FfD4 outcome document, which is scheduled to be held in Sevilla, Spain, from 30 June – 3 July 2025.

Led by PrepCom Co-Chairs Zéphyrin Maniratanga (Burundi) and Rui Vinha (Portugal), PrepCom 3 expanded on discussions on a draft of the FfD4 Outcome Document. Commenting on the upcoming FfD4 conference, UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that it “opens the door for world leaders to adopt ambitious reforms to deliver affordable long-term financing at scale – and deliver the SDG Stimulus. And it presents a unique opportunity to reform an international financial system that is outdated, dysfunctional and unfair.”

PrepCom 3 convened at UN Headquarters in New York, from 10-14 February 2025, under the auspices of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) writers for this meeting were Tallash Kantai; Anna Dubrova; and Emma Vovk. The Digital Editor was Mike Muzurakis. The Editor was Pam Chasek, Ph.D.