(Day 3) Sevilla Platform for Action (SPA) Initiatives Announcement - 4th International Conference on Financing for Development FFD4 (Sevilla, Spain) Conferences Date: 2 July 2025 Language: English Transcript: https://transcripts.un.org/en/asset/k13/k132g2j5cp Transcripts available through this tool are created by using automatic speech recognition and are not official records nor official documents of the United Nations. Official records and official documents are available on the Official Document System of the United Nations. --- Democratic Republic of the Congo [0:00]: Thank you very much. Distinguished member of the Global Partnership for Effective Cooperation, distinguished members of the press, I am honored to associate myself on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Congo to the launch of the 2030 Pact of Effective Development Cooperation. The launch of this pact occurs in a pivotal moment where global development cooperation landscape is facing severe strains with aid budget cuts, crisis, and competition priorities. From conflicts to climate change, the urgency to mobilize financing for sustainable development has never been greater. Learning from the past 20 years of global commitment of effective acts, such as the Paris Declaration in 2005, the Accra Agenda for Action in 2008, the Busan Partnership in 2011, the 2030 Pact for Effective Development Cooperation aims to push forth a new, ambitious political agreement where dialogue, inclusivity, transparency, Accountability, data, and evidence will be called to foster national development strategies and policies. This fact is the expression of a coalition for better practices and new solutions to our guests to achieve sustainable development goals and make sure that every resource spent in development is used effectively and produces the utmost impacts for our populations. To all of us, governments, civil society, private sector, multilateral institutions, development banks, let us seize these opportunities to achieve the ambitious transformation our people expect. Thank you. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [2:16]: Thank you so much. And just recognized that I also didn't tell you who I am. My name is Jonas Wikstrom. I'm working at SIDA in Sweden, and I'm part of the SIDA secretariat supporting the Swedish co-chairmanship in GPEDC, the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. So with that said, I'm now calling on the next speaker. We have the Minister for Planning and Economic Development for Sierra Leone. Please, the stage is yours. Sierra Leone · Minister for Planning and Economic Development [3:02]: I'm not continuing in Spanish. Thank you, Master of Ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister for Planning and Coordination of Development Aid of the Republic of Congo, Eche Guelene Yembo Muzia. Distinguished colleague panelists, members of the press, and guests. I'm pleased to deliver this statement on behalf of the government and the people of Sierra Leone, following yesterday's important GPEDC side event on using evidence and dialogue to drive action towards a 2030 pact for effective development cooperation. Sierra Leone fully supports the 2030 pact because it reflects our firm belief that effective development cooperation is more important now than ever. In an increasingly constricting financial landscape, we must ensure that every resource, no matter how limited, delivers maximum value. The pact provides a clear evidence-based framework to do just that. In the light of this, I am proud to note and also divulge to the press that Sierra Leone is an ardent supporter of the effectiveness agenda and that we have participated in each of the last three GPEDC monitoring rounds, including the ongoing fourth monitoring round, a process that is providing us data and insights we need to strengthen the quality of our partnerships, improve coordination, and align support more closely with national priorities. It is helping us to move beyond good intentions to measurable results. By embracing the pact, Sierra Leone commits to deeper reforms in the way we manage our public resources, engage with partners, and track impact. We are investing in stronger public financial management, improving accountability, and using evidence to guide our decisions. This is not just technical work, it is about restoring trust ensuring that development cooperation will truly deliver for our people. We see the 2030 Pact not just as a new promise, but as a practical tool to reset how development is done, anchored in shared principles and mutual respect. And that is why Sierra Leone is not only supporting the Pact, but also stepping forward to co-lead to conclude it here in Seville. We believe that with commitment, evidence and collective will, the pact can support real progress where it matters most, on the ground, in our countries and for our citizens. I thank you. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [6:47]: Thank you. Thank you so much for that inspiring speech. I would now just like to hand over to our third speaker, the co-chair. From Sweden, Ms. Annika Otterstedt. Sweden · Co-Chair · Annika Otterstedt [7:13]: Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear effectiveness champions, As one of the four co-chairs of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, GPEDC, I would like to warmly welcome you to this launch of the 2030 Pact for Effective Development Cooperation. I'm very happy that so many of you have joined us here today. Also, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have engaged in the process leading up to Ceville and in the GPDC work, including the partner country-led monitoring round, which is ongoing as we speak. Our joint work on different fronts to enhance development effectiveness is more important than ever. In a world of finite resources and growing challenges, Development effectiveness is an essential pathway to drive sustainable development. It is not an add-on. When development cooperation funds are used effectively, countries maximize the impact from each euro or dollar invested. I'm therefore very pleased to see that the FFD4 outcome document puts development effectiveness at the center and has development effectiveness added to the title of the section on international development cooperation, which signals a renewed urgency to drive action on the effectiveness of all types of development cooperation, including North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation, the effectiveness of MDBs and climate finance. It also includes a strong statement on the importance to uphold long-standing effectiveness principles, country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, transparency and mutual accountability. The principles are still very valid for addressing the challenges in an evolving development cooperation landscape. It also includes a statement on reinvigorating the development cooperation architecture globally and in countries as a basis for a more effective, inclusive, coherent and efficient cooperation and partnership that both honors existing commitments and meets and adapts to emerging needs. It also firmly mentions GPDC as key for supporting global knowledge sharing and learning. In this vein, we are here today at the launch here at F54 of a civil platform for action initiative under the working name of the 2030 Pact for Effective Development Cooperation. I would like to thank all partners who have endorsed the initiative and especially the one taking a leading role in the work. The initiative is a call to action for a co-creative development co-operation system fit for purpose and true to the effectiveness principles. The initiative will build on ongoing work, including the global monitoring round, and should not be seen as a new platform, but rather as a means to reset how we work together by aligning efforts behind country and local priorities and fostering trust. Some of you have already signed up to this initiative, and if not, we are inviting all to do so. Joining the 2030 Pact means shaping the future of development cooperation by co-creating a political roadmap, learning and sharing practical solutions through inclusive dialogues and learning labs, and helping craft a new narrative on effective development cooperation that reflects today's diverse realities and challenges. We see this work as a stepping stone from FSD4 to the next important event on development effectiveness in the form of the 2025 Busan Forum to be hosted by the Republic of Korea in October, which is to be followed by the 2026-27 Fourth High-Level Meeting on the Global Partnership. The HLM will follow up on the commitments made at the FFD4 and take stock of the final results of the Global Monitoring Round. I welcome you all to join in shaping this work and vision ahead in a truly participatory and co-creating manner. Thank you. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [12:19]: Thank you so much. And we have come to Our fourth and last speaker is the co-chair representing the non-executive stakeholders in our partnership, Mr. Luca de Fraia. The floor is yours. CPDE · Co-Chair · Luca de Fraia [12:38]: Thank you, and good morning and welcome. It's a great pleasure to be here speaking with these distinguished colleagues. I think we have already learned a lot about the Pact. I would highlight that from the perspective of non-executive actors, GPDC is a multi-stakeholder initiative. The pact will offer more and more opportunities for non-government actors to be involved actively. And this speaks to one of the fundamental principles of effectiveness, agenda inclusiveness. And specifically, if I may say, from non-executive actors, CSOs, and at the time where we see that the space is shrinking, this is good news. Good news that we're going to have a multi-stakeholder space where the perspectives of different actors can be properly heard and assessed. Let me also highlight that the GPDC made a conscious decision not to present here in Seville a pre-cooked agenda. The intention is to work together with the partners to draft the map, the steps to be taken in the months to come through our dialogues, laboratories, and we're going to have a first meeting of the partners in mid-July. There's a good example of inclusiveness and working together. But surely the GPDC will be the engine of this pact. to make sure that this pact actually turns into action, from a promise into action. We're going to make sure that over the next two years, the pact will deliver as much as possible, will cover as much ground as possible. This is the commitment we are making. For us, it's very important that we synergize as much as possible will bring together all kinds of efforts are pushing in the direction of ownership, country ownership and democratic country ownership. Let me, in this regard, highlight the country democratic ownership is part and parcel of the Busan Declaration, and for us, as a fundamental agenda to consider and to develop. We hopefully are going to bring together all kinds of evidence bases that are available at this stage. Obviously, we believe the GPDC monitoring exercise can provide fundamental insights into the implementation of the effectiveness, but elements coming from INFFs, VNRs, TUSD, OECD DAC, obviously, are extremely important to push this agenda in the right direction. So I would like to conclude with strengthening the call for joining this pact as we need to work together for a successful effectiveness agenda. Thank you. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [15:54]: Thank you very much, Luca. Before I open up for questions from here in the room, I would like to just go through the list of the endorsing partners to this pact. We have four of the leads represented here in the panel, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Sweden, and CPD, the CSO Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. But in addition, we have also Ghana, Nigeria, Republic of Korea taking on leading roles in this initiative. And in addition to the leads, we have endorsing partners, and they include Australia, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Madagascar, the Philippines, Spain, Switzerland, Uganda, Zambia, Arab Coordination Group, CIVICUS, Friends of the Kampala Principles, and Wings Philanthropy Network. So there is a quite a large number of endorsing partners and we are still welcoming more to join us. So with that, we can open up for questions from the floor to this panel or questions on the pact. I think we have the first question. Would you like to come? Please welcome Mr. Kasztelnik, Chair of the DAC. DAC · Chair · Mr. Kasztelnik [17:46]: It's not as much a question, but it's more a voice of support for this pact. We are living in difficult times. We see a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unpredictability across the global economy, trade and investments. We see a lot of concerns on the future of official development assistance. We see cuts in ODA at present from a number of major donors. We see a lot of tectonic plates shifting. I think one of the things that will not shift and one of the things that we in the DAC, when we review all those issues and all the effects that they have on the IDC, which we will zoom in on, is the issue of effectiveness. I just want to voice the centrality of effectiveness, the centrality of the pact, the centrality of GPDC in this context. One of the messages that Jonas presented, I think, at the beginning and also was voiced by others in the panel has been that we need really to be sure that we invest every dollar, every yen, every euro, and presumably it's more and more euros these days. we invest it as effectively as we can. We cannot waste the investment capital and the investment drive of ODA. In this context, the fact that the Pact and the work of G20 combines the broader effectiveness agenda with a clear ownership agenda, which, of course, is a central key. Both of these issues are a central key to the Compromiso de Sevilla. And it's really, really important that we double down on that. I would encourage all DAC members to join the pact. You mentioned some of them who have already signed up for it, but I hope we can even widen that circle as we move forward. But it is really, really important. Effectiveness is a question that will need some deep dive analysis. How can we actually improve effectiveness and improve ownership at one and the same time? That would be the big challenge for us as we move forward. We do know from a lot of OECD data and statistics that there's a number of obstacles, a number of barriers to fully create a very effective international development cooperation landscape or system. We need to unblock some of these barriers, some of these obstacles. If we work together, donors, civil society, with national and multilateral organizations and partner countries, not least, of course, governments of partner countries and civil society in partner countries, we will have a chance to make the world a better place through driving down and driving home this effectiveness agenda. So strong encouragement from my side to the Pact. I hope that it will really be transformative. It's really good to see that the Pact is driving a link between the civilian platform of action and the TPD-C, and we need to drive on those dynamics as we move forward. Thank you very much. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [21:02]: Thank you very much. Let's see if I can get this one to work. Yes. So through this code, you can get more information on the PACT and also how to register and join and get in touch with us. Otherwise, I will continue to leave the floor open for any questions or comments. Please. It's up to you. Speaker 11 [21:41]: Okay. CPDE [21:42]: I think this, I'm from civil society, from CPDE and a part of your team. I think this initiative is extremely important because it's strengthening a new paradigm with democratic ownership, when countries stakeholders like government, in-country donors, private sector, civil society, local authorities, parliamentarians are meant to work together, not only at the in front of some meetings, but all the ways in the implementing their own strategies. It's really strengthening democratic ownership. For civil society, it is important that it provides a good opportunity at country level, at regional level, to institutionalize civil society participation, to voice people's needs, and also to back up a very important principle, leave no one behind. For us, FFD is not just FFD, for all of us. FFD is backup support to sustainable development goals. In this sense, it will be very important to unite. And this also helps all those who are working for financing for development, for sustainable development goals, for climate change, to come up to coherent work. This is lacking. Policy coherence is something which is supported by this pact. And this pact will, I am sure, it will help to unite, not at the global level, at regional levels and globals. And I am sure that the GPD-C initiative will be supported not only by DAC members, not only by countries who are partner countries receiving aid, but also by South-South providers and by those who are providing different aid. This pact will provide the opportunity to unite and institutionalize multi-stakeholder partnership. Thank you. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [23:56]: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yes, we have another comment or question. Research Professor of Law · Kurt Dobler [24:07]: Yes. Thank you very much. Kurt Dobler, research professor of law at the University of the Canyon, Sierra Leone. As an American Palestinian, I'm very encouraged to see pacts towards cooperation and enhancing development assistance when some parts of the world are going in the other direction. I have a very short question. I would just like to know, maybe you have examples of how this pack might be able to enhance South-South cooperation, particularly in West Africa, where many of the countries participating are. And are there ways that it can enhance that? Thank you. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [24:47]: Thank you so much. I look at the panel and Luca, perhaps. Yeah. CPDE · Co-Chair · Luca de Fraia [25:03]: I thank you for your question. The South-South cooperation agenda is developing at this stage on different levels. You may know the UN is carrying out some pilot exercise to monitor South-South cooperation better. The GPDC, through the pact, acknowledges the South-South cooperation principles, which are by themselves in agenda, BAPA 40, for instance, you may recall the big conference on South-South cooperation. So as GPDC, we would like to embrace all these kinds of principles, South-South cooperation as well, and work together. That's what the pact will do. We'll try to break the silos. That's the perspective from the GPDC side, but possibly our colleagues would like to expand on that. Sierra Leone · Minister for Planning and Economic Development [26:00]: Yes, thank you for that question. And, well, we do come from the same country, but very recently, Sierra Leone hosted the third South-South Cooperation Forum. And we did discuss knowledge sharing, peer learning. And so we see that the pacts has been very central to this. And we did discuss very deeply how countries can cooperate to the point that in Sierra Leone, we will be setting up a directorate of triangular cooperation, and South-South cooperation. And it is actually going to be situated in our ministry. the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development. So we're working towards that and definitely being a co-lead on the pact will ensure that the data sharing and whatever is generated by the pact is incorporated in what we do and we'll see how we can synergistically work together and ensure that there is greater impact on this. Thank you. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [27:12]: Anika, yes. Sweden · Co-Chair · Annika Otterstedt [27:15]: Yes, I just wanted to add that I think from what I've seen in many countries where I've been working, there is so much going on nowadays. And we also heard yesterday in the development forum that many of the development cooperation agencies in either the lower income countries or now entering into the middle income countries They are both donor and recipients. And I think those are very well placed to, on one hand, incorporate the understanding and the learning and the partnerships that are going on between them and the more traditional partners and donors, but also at the same time realizing the difficulties and the challenges that the recipient countries have so that Now, some of them are also becoming the donor partners and donor countries. So I think by having said that, especially when I look at Latin America and now hearing from our colleagues in Sierra Leone, that these interchanges are just increasing. And I think that's the way to go to unlock not only the financial solutions, but more even so the the understanding and the learning of how do we want to do development together and what are the different alternatives. So very much welcoming this to take place with or without the pact, but the pact, I think, and the coordination group within the GPD can enhance the learning and the exchange of ideas between these partners, all of us. Thank you. SIDA · SIDA secretariat · Jonas Wikstrom [29:05]: Thank you. Thank you so much. And we still have some time for comments or questions to the pack and to the panel. I see no more questions. And we are also running out of time. So that brings us to the conclusion of this press facing launch. And we would like to thank, of course, the panel for being here today, presenting the Pact and your perspectives. And also thank you to all participants in the room for sharing this opportunity and this moment with us and for the questions and comments. And as you can find more information, as I said, about the pact through this code. And please do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions or if you are considering endorsing actually this pact, as we welcome more members. With that, I say thank you and have a good day. Speaker 21 [51:52]: Play all songs of the Kapil Sharma Show. ICC · Head of Policy and Communications Team · Andrew Wilson [1:23:29]: Play all songs of the Kapil Sharma Show. One, two, oh, can you hear me? You can hear me, wow, okay, good start to the show. Sabrina, is the live stream automatically on? Or do we need to check with the production team? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning to everyone watching on the UN live stream. It's great to be with you this morning. I'm Andrew Wilson. I head up the policy and communications team at the International Chamber of Commerce. For those of you that don't know us, we're a global business organization representing around 45 million members in over 170 countries. And it's great to be joined by two of our partners from Boston Consulting Group. Ravi. BCG · Partner · Ravi Hanspal [1:48:13]: Thank you, Andrew. Hi, everyone. Pleasure to be here today. Quick introduction. My name is Ravi Hanspal. I'm a partner at BCG based out of London. I lead a lot of our work on trade and supply chain finance globally. Been partnering with Andrew and the ICC team for over 10 years on some of their flagship work around trade finance and over the last four years on setting up and really taking this sustainability program from an idea to something that's actually taking real traction and becoming endorsed policy in many financial institutions worldwide. BCG · Partner · Doug Beal [1:48:45]: Good morning. My name is Doug Beal. I'm a partner with Boston Consulting Group based in New York. I have a global role working with financial institutions on social impact and just transition. And over the course of the past 10 years, I've worked with many banks on their sustainable finance frameworks, including sustainability linked, green, social, et cetera. And every time we got to the product, called trade finance, we said, wow, this is difficult. Let's put this aside and do it again in the future. And this is now the future. So congratulations to ICC for taking on this task and look forward to talking with you about it today. ICC · Head of Policy and Communications Team · Andrew Wilson [1:49:32]: Huge thanks, Doug, and welcome to the future, everyone, or at least the future of sustainable trade as we hope to see it. Maybe just a bit of background for everyone. For those of you that don't know what trade finance is, it is not the most sexy or appealing or exotic part of the global financial system, but from a real economy perspective, it is absolutely essential. So trade credit, bank intermediated finance, according to the WTO, underpins something in the region of 70% of global trade. trade finance market, I think, is estimated at being worth something like 10 to $13 trillion globally. So it is a huge market. And we started this project, this initiative, as Ravi alluded to earlier, in 2021, really with the objective of looking at how can we align trade and its associated financing with sustainable development and specifically the sustainable development goals. As I've said many times in the past, when we started that project, I thought it was going to be very naively, as it turns out, an 18 month project max. It's taken us several years because of the complexities of trade that Ravi will talk to. But really, what we've been seeking to do is to agree a common definition within the market, particularly with the banks, as to what sustainable trade and trade finance is, to establish a common set of principles and a common framework for the banks to use, and also in future to enable consistent disclosures and practices from the banking market. And you'll see where we've got to in that process very shortly. BCG · Partner · Ravi Hanspal [1:51:30]: So I think to begin, Why is this really important? And fundamentally, if we look at the market, the global economy, global supply chains are accountable for about 30% of total carbon emissions. In addition, if you take trade itself, trade is effectively the melting pot of business practices, social practices across the world, completely different economies. Some practices very much in line with what we're supporting here, others less so. And therefore, by getting trade to meet standards, you're effectively helping bring together the best in class standards globally across the economy. Now, the reason why getting here, as Doug and Andrew have mentioned, is so difficult is effectively that a lot of the sort of principles and guidance around sustainable finance doesn't really apply well to trade finance. And that's because trade finance is what we call a flow product. You're effectively financing the movement of goods and you don't necessarily know what those goods are doing, where they're being used. Now, if you look at something like the green loan principles, well, they're largely focused on projects. We're doing a project to achieve X. If I'm moving trainers, footwear from one country to another, I don't know what their end purpose is. And what we've had to do is develop a framework that allows for that, because that certainly doesn't mean that it can't be sustainable. Now, if we look at the other challenges around trade, we look at multiple markets, there's no clear consensus view on what is sustainable. We don't know the purpose of the good, as I mentioned. And also, there are no real clear standards to follow. As such, there's a real need to bring this level playing field so that we can define what really good looks like here. ICC · Head of Policy and Communications Team · Andrew Wilson [1:53:24]: The risk of giving you too much background information, but then I promise we will get into the substance of what we're launching today. But we wanted everyone to be clear on the trajectory and the background to this project. Essentially, where we started in 2021 was trying to define a common framework for how you measure the sustainability of trade at a transactional level, which had never been done before. Having completed that, and then in consultation with pretty large number of major banks. We then started to look at how do you make this operational, how do you actually bring impact, which is where we moved to the higher level principles on sustainable trade finance specifically, starting with the articulation of principles for green trade finance, which were launched last year, and now moving to a broader framework encompassing social issues. And what we're delighted to say is, since the launch of the Green Trade Finance Principles, we now have 30% of the trade finance market aligned to that framework. And just a few weeks ago, we were able to announce the public support of four major banks that I think you can see on the screen. here. So there is very, very clear momentum within the market. Now we're taking the next step to completing the framework, adding the social dimension of sustainability to the environmental dimension. So, Ravi, take it away. BCG · Partner · Ravi Hanspal [1:54:57]: Of course. Thank you. So as Andrew mentioned, we've already launched successfully and banks are aligned to the principles of green trade finance. And what we're launching today, and it is genuinely being launched today, is an open consultation on the principles for social trade finance, but also the principles of sustainability linked trade for supply chain finance, which actually is one of the biggest opportunities in the trade space to really make tangible impact. Now, perhaps to sort of take you through, just give you a whistle stop tour of the frameworks and principles that we've developed. The principles for social trade finance effectively there are four fundamental pillars. And what we've tried to do here is, as far as possible, mimic what is being used across financial institutions today. So we've tried to tie alignments to LMA and ICMA as closely as possible. Now, what those four pillars effectively are, are the use of proceeds. This is fundamentally a use of proceeds-based definition, evidencing, safeguarding, and then reporting. And the fundamental principle, which I'll walk through in a second, is that in order to have accredited social trade finance, the transaction either needs to support a social purpose or the goods need to fundamentally and inherently support a social activity. From an evidence perspective, this needs to be clearly evidenced, and that is something that is very, very difficult to do. It's hard enough in green. And social is even more difficult. We as the ICC team are trying to make that much easier, but it is a big, big pillar. Safeguarding, there needs to be very, very strong clarity that there is no significant harm caused by the transaction, and that needs to be rigorously and robustly reported. Now, to bring this to life and make it as tangible as possible, I thought I'd go through a few worked examples. So fundamentally, the key question we need to ask when looking at any transaction is, Do we know the purpose? And this is very hard in trade finance, but sometimes we do. If we know the purpose, clearly, is the purpose aligned with the socially accredited activity? Now, where it gets more complex is if we don't know the purpose. And if we don't know the purpose, we effectively have two routes to determine whether it's social trade finance or applicable from a use of proceeds perspective. One, does the goods have an inherent nature where it is very clearly and indisputably supporting a social purpose. Vaccines are an example I'll go through. It's healthcare, it's for the greater good. If that isn't the case, the alternative is, are we very, very confident, and this needs to be clearly and robustly evidenced, that the good is produced in a socially sustainable way. Now, just sort of, in fact, one more point before we get into examples. In addition and crucially, and this is partly the alignment of ICMA and LMA, is that there needs to be a clear target audience as well. Now, that can be quite narrow, so specific disadvantaged groups. It can also be quite broad and we broadened it. So for example, a general population can be a target population. So as long as we are very confident that the transaction or the purpose is increasing access. Now, just to work through a couple of examples, so where the purpose is known, Let's say we're getting a performance guarantee for building a school. That is very clearly supporting the greater access to education and essential services. Where it gets a little bit more tricky is perhaps the next example, where we don't know the purpose, but if the good is something like vaccines, then clearly it is an inherent social activity, again, access to essential services, that is supporting. Where it gets a bit more tricky is the example, and it's the third one on the page, around Let's say it is soil coffee beans. Those themselves, they don't have necessarily a social purpose. Inherently, even looking at the good, you can't be confident of what that purpose is. But if they're produced as part of a program with a social purpose, so for example, funding a community and this one community in those drought or famine, then actually you can apply the social principle to that transaction. What we've tried to do here is bring together a very aligned view. and the banks agree, and the banks of work agree, that meets the LMA and ISMA principles, but effectively also is broad enough to generally apply to a large proportion of trade. The second pillar that we're launching today is the principles for sustainability-linked supply chain finance. Now, personally, I find this is one of the most exciting opportunities here because It's effectively a win-win for large buyers and their suppliers, and in essence. For some of you who are less familiar with supply chain finance, effectively it allows large buyers to fund their supply chains on their credit. For example, if you've got a large supermarket, uh, their suppliers can reduce the payment terms and borrow on sort of that AAA investment grade credit, substantially increasing access to liquidity for suppliers. Now, in a sustainability-linked program, the win-win comes from the fact that if you imagine a large buyer, they will have clear objectives as to how can they, for example, reduce their scope 3 emissions. And what these types of programs allow is large buyers through the support of a bank to actually reward their suppliers and increase liquidity to the suppliers for them meeting certain goals. And in essence, the most common setup is if a supplier meets certain targets and shows demonstrative progress, they can actually reduce the financing rate on their payables. Now, what the principles are, are effectively providing guidance to banks as to how to govern and accredit such programs. And today, and it was quite interesting, we've done work as part of this ICC piece, we spoke to all of the large banks in the space They all had very, very different ways of approaching the problem. And surprisingly, they're actually asking us, how can we have some commonality? We're worried about greenwashing risk. And what these sort of principles do is set very, very clear expectations and recommendations to how to run these programs. And without going into a huge amount of detail, effectively, there's some effective non-negotiable criteria. So having clear KPIs that are very much in line and supporting both the buyer and suppliers ESG strategies, having very clear targets that are gradated in line with these strategies, clearly monitoring, tracking, and evidencing progress, having a very clear, though optional, means of rewarding progress, And then finally, having very clear guidance on if progress isn't made and you do no longer believe that a supplier or a program in the whole is sustainable, having a declassification criteria. And actually meeting all of these criteria required quite a few banks to actually shift how they're approaching the space, but we believe for a much, much stronger and robust result. Andrew, over to. ICC · Head of Policy and Communications Team · Andrew Wilson [2:02:37]: So where from here? What we've published today and what's on the ICC website now, if you go on iccwbo.org, is the consultation document on the social principles that Ravi just outlined. We'll be running a multi-week consultation, inviting comments from member banks, but also broader stakeholders, certainly corporations with an interest in trade finance flows, but we're also interested to hear from sustainability experts, academics, NGOs, et cetera. Have we got the level right in terms of how we've positioned the social framework, but also from a corporate perspective, is it practical? And I think as Ravi said, We're aware that banks will have to make significant adjustments to some of their existing practices. This was a very heterogeneous market, particularly in the social space. We're now looking to actually align it, and that will require quite a journey. So is this robust, but also can it be practically implemented and can it make a difference? So that consultation will run through to the 5th of September. And the aim is to try and finalize that as expeditiously as possible, moving towards the finalization of the full principles for sustainable trade finance at some point next year. We set Q4 on the slide, where I think hopeful of doing that. This process has now been going on for quite a considerable time. So our view is the sooner we can get this finalized out in the market, hopefully with endorsement from a substantial part of the market, we can then really move to an environment where we have trade visibly and materially aligned with the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. Thank you. And at that point, I thought perhaps we can open the stage to questions, which we will then try amongst us to feed. BCG · Consultant · Killian Smith [2:04:58]: Thank you. My name is Killian Smith. I'm a consultant at BCG, but I have not been involved with this awesome project. I came from ESG and sustainability, and I know there's no shortage of frameworks out there, specifically financing. So my question specifically is, what makes the ICC sustainable trade principles different from other financing frameworks? BCG · Partner · Doug Beal [2:05:22]: I don't know. So good question, Killian. I would say it is aligned with many of the sustainable finance frameworks that are out there. As I said in my opening, those frameworks cover a number of products. They cover debt, they cover private equity, they cover public equities, they cover a number of different products. Trade finance was always the most difficult to crack for many of the reasons that Andrew and Ravi have described. The clients that I've had over the last several years, as I mentioned, we've said, you know, this is too difficult for us to tackle ourselves. Let's set it aside, which is why it's terrific that it's being done now with a multi-stakeholder group of banks. And it's different because it's applied to trade finance, where all the others generally are kept out of it, right? So it's aligned to the common frameworks, but we're layering on the product of trade finance. BCG · Partner · Ravi Hanspal [2:06:22]: And just sort of to build very quickly on why that really matters, at the start of this program, we had tier one banks basically saying, we by ourselves need to adapt other frameworks, green loan principles, et cetera, almost guess how that applies to trade finance and run with either greenwashing risk or on the other side of the spectrum, not offer sustainable trade at all, and therefore not actually be able to sort of reward and encourage and drive volumes of the trade that's really making the difference. So hopefully this will really accelerate that shift. ICC · Head of Policy and Communications Team · Andrew Wilson [2:06:59]: No more questions. I think the comprehensiveness, Ravi, of your presentation has done the job. So I think we can wrap up just slightly ahead of time. Just like to say huge thanks to our partners at BCG, who have really been the driving force Behind this work, also huge thanks to the ICC team which has worked on this, particularly Raylene Martin and Tomasz Kubiak at our Paris headquarters. And a reminder, particularly to everyone watching on the live stream, that this now is the start of a consultation process where we are genuinely keen to get as much, hopefully, constructive feedback as possible. Have we got the level right? Is this practical so that we can finally get the principles for sustainable trade finance finalized? And in many ways, trade finance is lagging behind other asset classes for good for good reason. But we think this is the year to finally get that framework in place and hopefully by the time of COP 30 to see the market come out in force behind it, both in terms of the green and the social dimension. So we look forward to working with you all And thanks again to our colleagues at BCG. Thank you. Speaker 34 [4:07:07]: Play all songs of the Kapil Sharma Show. Buenos dias. Yes. Play all songs of the Kapil Sharma Show. Play all songs of the Kapil Sharma Show. Sorry. Moderator [4:39:04]: So Hola, buenas tardes, aqui en Sevilla. Welcome to Sevilla for this SPA initiative, a joint declaration on partnership opportunities between institutional investors, pension funds and multilateral development banks. So, welcome to our Panel today, Mr. Steven Collet, from the Netherlands, Vice Minister for Development, who will introduce the policy perspective on this partnership. Then we have Mr. Manfred Schapers, CEO from ILEX Management, who is leading this innovation. We have Mr. Christian Kleebold, Head of the Department of Mobilization at the EBRD, providing the perspective of a multilateral development bank. And we have Ms. Ylva Lindberg, the Executive Vice President, Strategy and Communication from Norfund, providing a DFI perspective. So a lot of perspective on this joint partnership. Welcome to all of you to this panel. And we will try to kind of demystify what this partnership is about in the coming, say, 15 to 20 minutes. What's the partnership? Why is it innovative? How do institutional investors and governments and multilateral banks work together? So all these questions we will try to address. and also do so in understandable language for everyone who is watching. So that's perhaps also a challenge for people coming from inside to make it really understandable for people watching on the outside. So in that order, I'd like to ask now Mr. Steven Collet, Vice Minister, to introduce why the Netherlands has been leading on this initiative. and what it adds to a policy perspective on financing for development. Mr. Colette, you have the floor. Netherlands (Kingdom of the) · Vice Minister for Development · Steven Collet [4:41:55]: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. We have 18% of the sustainable development goals at reach. We have four more years to go, and we need the sustainable development goals to succeed for stability and peace and prosperity in the world. This is not doable without additional financing, and that's why we are here in Seville to consider how financing for development can be achieved. We have a lot of experience. We didn't start today. And based on that experience, the Netherlands has taken the initiative, supported by IELX, we'll get to that later, to actually come to an initiative to mobilize institutional investors. Institutional investors are pension funds or insurers, and they create a lot of wealth for the pensioners, for the people they serve. Their wealth can also be future oriented, and that means that we need to talk with pension funds how their assets, 15 billion for European pension funds alone, can be utilized for investing into the SDGs and climate action. And the way we do that is through the multilateral development banks because they have a rich repertoire of 40, 50 years of experience. So we try to connect the dots between these development banks and the pension funds. Why do we do this? Because government has a role and a commitment to play that role, to connect the dots, to initiate innovations, and to ensure that these are relevant for development. We have the momentum now because we learned a lot the past 10 years over how to do this. And the most important thing I think we learned is to speak each other's language. 10 years ago, we from development wanted the private sector to deliver for development, whilst the private sector is not founded to deliver for development. They deliver for their own aims. Now we know how to talk each other's language and connect the dots. And for that, we need assets, we need classes of assets that can actually invest. And for that, my colleagues will tell you a lot more. We are very proud to do this jointly with Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and the United Kingdom. And of course, we work together with our pension funds, with our multilateral development banks and other international financial institutions. We are very excited to do this. We are starting a roadmap to actually deliver on this commitment because Seville is about commitments, but it's more about action and we're in for action. Thank you. Moderator [4:44:43]: Thank you very much, Mr. Colette, for providing this kind of broad context in which we are doing this and why this is important from a policy perspective. But now the question of course is what is ILX? The X is always kind of a mystical letter. So Mr. Manfred Schapers, can you help us understand what ILX is and why this is so innovative? ILX · CEO · Manfred Schapers [4:45:15]: Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to share this platform. It's a fantastic initiative and we applaud the initiative taken by the Dutch government alongside those of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and the UK. And why these countries? These countries are endowed with very long-standing pension savings. And what we see as ILX over the past years and after the Addis Ababa and the Paris Accord, now already five years ago, six years ago, is that there was a opportunity to match the objectives of both the multilateral development banks, which effectively represent countries like the ones that are now supporting the SPA. And the pension funds in these countries, they share similar objectives. They have objectives of ensuring that there is solid economies, financial health, but also a good planet for people. And these objectives are shared by the pension systems in these countries as much as they're shared by the governments in these countries. We saw an opportunity to bring these two together in a unique partnership, a unique public-private partnership. that is needed to be able to address the challenges of the SDGs that, you know, are still largely unfulfilled, and particularly with the increased, uh, objectives of climate finance that, uh, will be further determined later this year in Brazil. And what ILX does is effectively, uh, manage on behalf of now, we're still only three years old, so we're still a, uh, call it a kid on the block, uh, but we are, uh, managing, uh, funds on behalf of now Dutch and, and Danish pension funds, but this will expand to, uh, to further pension funds in the countries part of the SBA. And we co-invest those with the multilateral development banks, which are, the ones that people are most familiar with, the EBRD, where Christian is here, but also the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, uh, private sector arm, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank. And in the future, uh, we will also have partnerships with the European Investment Bank and other European development banks. So it's a, a network, it's an ability to co-finance broadly, globally, in the most impactful projects that not only provide that unique impact, but also give pension funds the diversification they need. Because of what's happened over the past months, people have recognized that the pension funds are too concentrated to look after the savings of their members in the long term. So, diversification is important and the return on the risk that's being taken and what has been demonstrated in the multilateral bank system which is a very stable system in the current uncertainties that we have, they share their data, so it enables the pension funds to make judgments that the returns on these pension funds will be sufficient to be able to make this investment. These are huge steps that I think are effectively now we're at the, I think a little bit the birth of a new asset class. It's not just another hobby, it's not just another new strategy, I think this will become a core strategy. Uh, uh, Christian will comment a bit on the scale of growth in the multilateral development banks, but if you look at the NCQG's alone coming out of, uh, the COP last year and going into, uh, Brazil this year. the role of the multilateral development banks has already been committed at over 120 billion of climate finance a year. That will have to grow, and I think it can grow with the support of global pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. We approximate that the total savings in these systems is between 50 to 75 trillion. Just a 1% allocation to development finance will totally transform the system, and that is what I think It's not something we wish, it's not something we hope for, I think it's something that's going to happen, and I think SPAs like this are at the, uh, at the heart and the foundation of that, uh, of that impact, thank you very much. Moderator [4:49:37]: Th- thank you, Mr. Schapers. Perhaps one short follow-up question, because pensions are also a sensitive subject. So, what do you tell people who are worried about their pension savings being used for development in countries that they don't understand? Are the pensions safe in your hands? ILX · CEO · Manfred Schapers [4:49:59]: I think, of course, the developing countries have greater challenges across the economy and across the social structure and across climate and biodiversity. However, I think the multilateral bank system specifically has been created to support them. And the historical data shows that the financial performance of the assets that they have used to support these countries over the past three decades have been very safe and have attracted a very, uh, attractive return so that this asset class, in fact, has been more stable than many of the popular asset classes that these pension funds have been investing in, particularly in the United States, high yield bonds, leverage loans, all these markets that have become very fashionable. over the past decades. In fact, this asset class has generated a better return. And I think this is becoming unlocked. I think we'll get a lot of attention. So I think I was personally, I'm sadly not a participant in one of the participating pension funds, ILEX, but I would sleep better with this investment than many of the other investments. Moderator [4:51:05]: Thank you very much. So, and I hope your pension is safe in the hands of where it's sitting. ILX · CEO · Manfred Schapers [4:51:10]: To add that your pension is participating. Moderator [4:51:13]: Thank you very much. Let's move to the perspective of the multilateral development bank. So we build a lot on your experiences. So Mr. Christian Kleybooth at the EBRD, perhaps you can explain quickly what a multilateral development bank as yourselves doing, why this is interesting for you, and of course also how do you manage such a large amount of funding? EBRD · Head of the Department of Mobilization · Christian Kleebold [4:51:44]: Thank you. And I do actually hope that, uh, my pension is also invested into MDB, uh, assets because I completely trust them. So, uh, EBRD is a regional development bank. Uh, we're not global. We are in, uh, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Turkey, North Africa, uh, and we are very excited to expand into six countries for now in Sub-Saharan Africa. Uh, last year, we invested from our own balance sheet approximately 17 billion euros, uh, in various sectors, the FI sector, the infrastructure sector, and the general industry sector. And on top of that, we have mobilized 27 billion euros, so a multiple, uh, of our, uh, own investment. So, we face challenges, of course, I mean, we are here in Seville, 45 degrees, uh, This will be normal. There is a lot of challenges to overcome, not just in climate. We have other natural disasters which we need to finance. There is a lot of things to do ahead of us. There is an expansion, there is rebuilding Ukraine. So we have big plans at DBAD to grow further every year. And for this you need capital. And for this you need partners who join you in the quest to support these markets, to support the crisis. And it's a challenge to find these partners. So this initiative is an excellent initiative in our view, because we need partners who join us for a very long term lending. We're talking 15 years, 20 years and beyond. We find this in the insurance sector, we find this in the pension sector, right? And ILEX. is a prime example and a very good model to be the link between pension funds and the MDB space, right? Because MDBs, at least I'm talking for DBID, we need to get used to working with pension funds. They are very different from the partners we have worked with before. So we need to learn ourselves a lot, like what do they need, what are their priorities, and we need to almost start to structure so that they can actually invest in it. So we do a lot of our own efforts, of course, but we have ILEX as, I think Manfred, you called it, the translator between MDBs and the pension system. And it's true, right? So we are also at the EBRD holding a roundtable where we invite pension funds to better understand how we need to tweak products, what type of products does that need to be and what is actually the impact they want to achieve. So we have a lot of models to offer, which is to need to learn how to properly apply them. And Alex is a wonderful example on how that could work. Moderator [4:54:41]: Thank you very much, Mr. Klebode. But then let's move to the final perspective. As is known from microcredits, money is always safer in the hands of women. So let's ask also whether that's also the case with macro funding, this large amount. So, Ylva Lindberg, you're at Norfund, a DFI. So, well, besides introducing Norfund a bit, because not everyone may know what you're doing, what's the motivation to come on board in this initiative? And what do you like to get out of this? Norfund · Executive Vice President, Strategy and Communication · Ylva Lindberg [4:55:20]: Thank you for putting trust in women as stewards of finance. We'll try to live up to that. So, Norfund is the Norwegian development finance institution, and we invest in developing economies only for impact, meaning to drive poverty alleviation, economic growth, but also to avoid emissions. We're a pretty small kid on this block, I would say, Manfred, with about $4 billion under management. But I think what sets us apart a little bit is that everything that we do is on commercial terms, but we take more risk and go into more risky markets than many of the others. And when it comes to this platform for action, I think it's only as good as the results it's going to produce on the ground. And there are lots of good intentions and high ambitions, but that doesn't matter if we can't get this to work on the ground. And so what do we do as DFIs? I think one thing we spoke about returns and just as an interesting data point, Norfund is about as old as the sovereign wealth fund in Norway or the oil fund. Of course, we have a totally different risk level from the oil fund, but if you look at our returns historically, they are more or less the same. So it is possible to generate decent returns in our markets. So from a DFI perspective, from a Norfund perspective, we mobilize in three different ways. So one is that we mobilize private capital at the individual project level, the investment level. And one example here is a recent investment that we just announced this week, $300 million through a platform called GlobalECC in red sands in South Africa, which is going to be Africa's largest battery energy storage. And with us here, we have two South African banks, so mobilizing domestic institutional capital. The second way that I think DFIs can play a role is to make sure that we don't stay invested for too long. It's very tempting to stay in good, safe investments, but we need to make sure that when we are no longer needed, we exit and then we sell to private players. So we divested our largest hydropower asset, $1.2 billion, to a solar company, Scottec, and that means that they come into our markets. So that's the second way to mobilize. And then the third one is through portfolio-level mobilization. We have a partnership with a Norwegian life insurance company, KLP, who very bravely decided 12 years ago to join us in investing in renewable energy in emerging markets. That's been successful for KLP, it's been successful for us, with returns in the low teens. So it does show that it's possible. But of course that isn't enough. If you look at this grave mismatch between the financing gap and the money flowing to where it's needed the most, we really, really need to step up. And Stephen, you spoke about language, that that can be a barrier between the MDBs, the DFIs, and the private sector. And thank you, Manfred, for doing such an important role in translating between those worlds. A few years back, I remember having a conversation with a lady from Oxfam, and she'd been having trouble speaking to the private sector. It got more and more heated, the discussion she had. And then they realized it was because when they spoke about equity, they spoke about two very different things. Oxfam spoke about equity as equality, the investment person spoke about equity as an investment instrument. So that's just an example of how wrong things can go. So we need to recognize that and then I think we need to also recognize that we will have different motivations for these partnerships. The institutional investors, they will be looking for diversification, they will be looking for attractive risk adjusted returns, they will be looking to serve their fiduciary duty. As DFIs and MDBs, we will be looking for impact, but we'll also be looking for attractive returns because otherwise we are not serving our mandate. Trying to recognise those different motivations and interests and then building models such as ILX and the KLP partnership that we have, and others, is going to be the way forward. We also need to make sure that we do not make things too complex, because we need to move at speed and at scale. As a future pensioner, I would feel much less comfortable, as is the is now with my money being put into government bonds in low-growth economies in Europe and the United States as opposed to in the high-growth economies, renewable energy in emerging markets. And that, I think, should be guidance for us going forward. Moderator [5:00:16]: Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Lindberg. And I hope that we will have another panel in 20 years' time when you have reached pension age, and then we'll see whether We are satisfied with the results of all the investments. So on that note, I'd like to thank all the panelists for their contributions and feel free, please, to get in contact with any of them if you have any more questions or whether you are sitting on a pension fund and you think this is really a step forward into making our portfolio more meaningful for development. So you're very welcome to join. Thank you very much and have a very good rest of the conference. Speaker 48 [5:03:49]: Play all songs of the Kapil Sharma Show. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:14:46]: Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes, okay. My name is Lias Feruki. I'm the regional team lead of the LAC Environment and Energy team based in the UNDP regional hub for Latin America and the Caribbean in Panama. And it is my pleasure today to welcome participants, partners, members of the press to this important moment for Latin America and the Caribbean, and really express our gratitude to all of you here for your interest in learning more about the LAC facility for financing resilient human development. The purpose of this press conference is to introduce you to a new regional initiative that seeks to respond to one of the most urgent questions facing the region. How do we collectively finance the more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable future? How do we work together to make this happen? Before handing the floor to the panel here, I'd like to present very briefly the participants. So we have Alejandro Pacheco here. Senior Partnership and Resource Mobilization Advisor of UNDP at the Region Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean. We have the great pleasure also to be accompanied by Cristina Yolanda Camacho del Castillo, Undersecretary of International Cooperation of the Government of Ecuador. Thank you, Cristina. We also have with us Jaime Roberto Diaz Palacios, Executive Vice President of CAVI, thank you, Jaime. We are very glad to also welcome Giampiero Leoncini, Executive Vice President of CAF. Thank you, Giampiero. And we also have with us Tim Raggi, founding partner and CEO of AlphaMundi. So I will hand over the floor now to Alejandro for a brief presentation of the LAC Facility for Financing Human Development. Over to you, Alejandro. UNDP · Senior Partnership and Resource Mobilization Advisor · Alejandro Pacheco [5:17:01]: Thank you. Good morning. Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be here today launching the facility that is focused on resilient human development. Let me untangle that a little bit. So first of all, we would like to acknowledge that Latin America and the Caribbean faces a critical juncture in these moments. It has made significant progress in the last 20 years, reducing poverty to half. Yet, one third of the population is in risk in falling back into poverty if having to face critical shocks. This is why we believe that the opportunity relies precisely in building resilience, in investing in resilience, which is still dangerously low. We acknowledge that the emergencies we are facing are not just that. They are not just emergencies. They are systemic risks, and they are in the face of a world that is facing uncertainty. When we look at uncertainty and we analyze the data in our latest Human Development Report, we see that in the last 20 years, it has doubled in Latin America and the Caribbean, being today 50% above the perception that the rest of the regions have, and that is where we would like to make the effort. The LAC Facility for Financing Resilient Human Development was launched two weeks ago in Fortaleza, in Brazil. And what we believe is that this regional platform can align public and private financing flows with long-term investments Again, in order to build resilience, resilience not thought as a one line linear understanding of it. Resilience can be linked to multi-dimensional shocks, be it climate related, be it citizen security related, be it economic shocks. And we've seen it throughout the last 20 years and we saw it clearly in the last COVID and confinement period where the shock for the region was the highest of all regions. Now, We believe that a collaborative mechanism like this that brings together governments, that brings together development banks, that brings together private sector, and you are seeing them sitting here and we will hear from them, because it is there that the opportunities lie. Working together can make a difference. The facility will aim at three priorities. First, financing itself. We know that there is an opportunity to build a pipeline, to identify opportunities, to co-design solutions for risk-informed channel capital towards resilient infrastructure, social protection to build resilience and climate adaptation. And we've been seeing this these days with incredible strength, and it comes in the outcome document that we celebrate, the opportunity for the region to come together and advance in South-South and triangular cooperation. In order to do so, we believe a mechanism of a regional network of experts can unleash the potential. I cannot go into the details or the examples that the facility already contains. Participants will do so, but let me just share the thematic bonds are becoming an incredible source of opportunities in the region, and we as UNDP have been able to accompany many of such examples. Parametric insurances are making already a difference and there is an opportunity to enlarge them and to go beyond traditional sectors. Blended finance together with the European Union Global Gateway and of course, actors from the region and digital finance, which given the potential disruption, but also the incredible opportunity that reflects artificial intelligence should become a priority in the region. Let me just say that the facility is already functioning throughout the examples that I am mentioning, but we are taking the second-half of the year to structure it, to structure it with together with the with the all the partners that we have to make sure that with our new strategic plan, January 2026, the facility has the shape that we all the partners wanted to have. Final message, the examples that you will hear are not working in isolation. The potential to bring together. the actors that have the will, have the knowledge and have the capacity allows for a structure changes. Thank you. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:21:39]: Thank you, Alejandro. So we'll hand the floor now to our guests here and we'll start with you, Cristina, if you could just tell us a little bit about the success stories from Ecuador. Ecuador · Undersecretary of International Cooperation · Cristina Yolanda Camacho del Castillo [5:21:53]: Thank you, Lies. For me, it's an honor to be representing Ecuador in this opportunity and to contribute to this vital dialogue by underscoring how innovative finance can serve as a catalyst for resilient, inclusive, and sustainable development. In 2023 alone, over $1.5 trillion in sustainable finance instruments were mobilized globally, yet only 4.3% of that financing reached Latin America and the Caribbean, a gap that underscores the urgent need to redirect capital towards regions where climate vulnerability is highest and developmental returns are most transformative. Ecuador, like many of our neighbors, faces a triple challenge. limited fiscal space, deepening climate risks, and increasing demands to deliver on the 2030 agenda. In response, we have chosen to transform constraint into creativity by pioneering financing solutions that protect ecosystems, empower communities, and unlock long-term prosperity. Our climate investment needs are significant. According to the World Bank Country Climate and Development Report for Ecuador, average annual investment needs for adaptation and mitigation are projected into $3.7 billion per year between 2025 and 2050. While this estimate carries a degree of uncertainty, it serves as a clear indicator of the scale of resources required to transition toward a climate-resilient future. Against this backdrop, Ecuador has emerged as a global innovator in sustainable finance. share with you some of the examples we have. In 2023, we completed the world's largest debt for nature swap to date, a groundbreaking transaction made possible through the partnerships with the Inter-American Development Bank and the US International Development Finance Corporation, the DFC. Through a special purpose vehicle, Ecuador repurchased $1.6 billion in a commercial debt at 40 cents on the dollar, unlocking an estimate of 450 million for our marine conservation projects in the Galapagos Islands. This operation was more than financial engineering, it was a strategic investment in the future of one of the planet's most fragile ecosystems. The proceeds are managed by the Galapagos Life Fund, an independent trust that finances marine protection, circular economy initiative, and inclusive development. Building on this success, Ecuador launched a second transaction in December 2024, this time aimed at supporting conservation in the Amazon Bio Corridor Fund. Together, these operations reflect a new model of climate finance, one that links sovereign debt relief biodiversity protection and local empowerment. To further illustrate this cutting edge approach in this domain, we will highlight also the work that we have done with our partners at the UNDP. Through a long-term partnership, we were able to combine and sequence non-reimbursable grants from the GEF and the GCF to create the enabling conditions to scale up deforestation-free production practices in the Amazon region. Promoting policy de-risking and generating the regulatory framework, we were able to bring in the private sector, such as Lavazza and Silva Cacao, who are now buying coffee and cacao at scale. This is the Pro-Amazon project, Pro-Amazonia project. In parallel, Ecuador is developing other forward-looking instruments and a national sustainable finance strategy to scale the issuance of green, social, blue, and sustainability-linked bonds. With support from UNDP, national development, and commercial banks, we are implementing deforestation-free credit lines and performance-based financing schemes. In this spirit, we welcome the LAC facility as a vital platform to align capital with transformative outcomes, foster regional cooperation, and scale up solutions that reflect our region's shared challenges and our shared determination to meet them with creativity, ambition, and solidarity. Speaker 53 [5:27:00]: Thank you. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:27:02]: Thank you so much, Cristina. Thank you, very inspiring. We'll hand over the floor now to Jaime from Kaveh for a short intervention. CABEI · Executive Vice President · Jaime Roberto Diaz Palacios [5:27:10]: Well, thank you very much, Elias. I want to first congratulate UNDP because, first of all, having acknowledged that we are living in a world with multiple crises, like you put it in the new regional human development report, You need to have instruments and toolkits that will make solutions happen for these emerging problems. And I want to also congratulate Ecuador, because you're also partnering with UNDP and CAF, doing this innovative finance. And I know that your administration is putting things in order to make, like you said, you mentioned these three triple challenges, right? And I know that you will overcome. Well, I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about CAVEI. Central America is a fantastic area, region. We have all these challenges that Cristina mentioned, but also we have a lot of opportunities. We are one of the most biodiverse regions. We are one of the most young regions as well, and is fasting growing in terms of economic growth, but also in terms of urbanization. Now, when you see this context in Central America, 60 years ago, there was a dream to finance a bank that will be the financial arm of the economic integration of the region. And that is the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. Under the leadership of Gisela Sanchez, we started a new strategy. And the title of the new strategy was a strategy for a different world. That was just one year before the original report of the human development. But it's actually the same bottom line. The nature of the world that we're living now is complex. The crises are multiple, and we need to think differently how we approach to these crises. And it's not only a matter of putting resources, because I think there are trillions of money or resources in the world. The reality, what we need to do is to identify better the problem and to bring solutions that are practical and that are fit for purpose. And that's where we see the important way to partners. We are making a good partnership with CAF and UNDP is always one of the partners of choice in terms of development. I'm going to put you one example. We were financing around five years ago the adoption of the national ID cards in Honduras. It was during COVID, also managing financial constraints, and also near electoral time. Can you imagine all these challenges that we had? We needed to work with someone like the UNDP to make that happen in time with quality. And that project not only was delivered with high success, but also was awarded one of the best programs in development. How this changed Honduras? In economic terms, you have more interoperability that will help to make it financial inclusion. It will help to have the citizens' civil rights to be formally registered, and also will help to have better elections like it happened in the past. As GABE does all the time, we identify the problem, we put resources to prepare projects that are bankable, and then we can mobilize resources. That's why we find many parallels with this facility, and we believe it's a good idea to make it happen. And I just want to put the last example here. We created during COVID the facility, the Fund for Climate Change, FSSA. We leverage our own resources with resources from Spain, I see, with German resources from KFW, and we were able to mobilize resources for project preparation. With those resources, we were able to prepare projects for sustainable investment in water in Honduras. This was the first project approved under the Global Gateway umbrella in Latin America, and it was approved last year. We are happy to make these bold steps. We also are financing now a dam in the north part of Honduras that will prevent flooding and will save millions of dollars that happen every year when the communities face these climate disasters. So I want to end up with this. We cannot do this alone. We need to think in systems. We don't we if we measure how much money we need to invest to make human development resilient, that they alone, alone, you know, will not be enough because you need to put more brains, you need to put more effort and you need to put more understanding how this work and that's where you see UNDP and other development partners happening so happy to to to to to express this experience and also to support this initiative thank you. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:32:54]: Thank you Jaime thank you thank you for for these words we'll hand over the floor now to Giampiero for your short statement thank you thank you. Central African Republic · Executive Vice President · Giampiero Leoncini [5:33:05]: Very much and good afternoon. For CAF, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, it's a great pleasure to be part of this coalition. And as the colleagues were saying, the question we are trying to address today is how do we finance a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable future? The answer is clear, by working together, strengthening our capacities, and developing financial instruments in close collaboration with our members to address their specific needs. So CAF has a longstanding and key partnership with UNDP, addressing the regional agenda for inclusive governance, for sustainable development. And our corporate strategy is aiming to position ourselves as the green bank that drives sustainable and inclusive growth for Latin America and the Caribbean. With this, uh, lack facility, we believe our expertise in thematic bonds, in green finance, digital transitions will be particularly relevant, and to mention an example, we recently issued, uh, 100 million euro blue bond, uh, launched together with UNDP as technical coordinator. It was the first time in our history, and this mobilizes resources for coastal resilience and climate smart infrastructure in Ecuador and in Brazil. So this is just one example of the instruments we have developed through joint efforts, and we remain fully committed to understanding the priorities of our members, designing financial solutions that effectively respond to their needs through the implementation of these instruments and by adapting adapting our institution. Sorry, I lost a bit my. By adapting our institution to meet the demands of today's context, we have already achieved 41% of caps approval categorized as green by 2024. So we reach the target two years ahead of schedule and we are of course striving for more in partnership with all of you. So We remain firmly committed to ensuring this growth is driven by human-centered, resilient, and sustainable perspective. Together, we can turn ambition into action and deliver lasting impact for the region and our people. Thanks. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:35:39]: Thank you, Giampiero. Thank you. And finally, let me hand over the floor now to Tim Raggi from AlphaMundi. AlphaMundi · Founding Partner and CEO · Tim Raggi [5:35:46]: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. We've been collaborating with UNDP for many years. I want to thank the UNDP for first creating a framework that allows the private sector to speak to the public sector with a common language and understanding about the sustainability agenda. That's really a very useful catalytic contribution to our efforts to finance the SDGs. Now, Alfa Mundi Group has mobilized and deployed around $130 million in SMEs in Latin America and Africa over the last decade. And our foundation has catalyzed another $40 million for these SMEs. What we contribute here to this new initiative of UNDP on resilience is a new strategy that we will launch next year related to climate change resilience in Latin America for mitigation and adaptation across three key countries that are Mexico, Colombia, and Peru. And we're very excited to also contribute to the broader promotion of Latin America among European institutional asset owners. One of the things that we've done this year and will replicate next year is bring Latin America to European asset owners. Latin America today is too small a percentage in the portfolios of European asset owners due to lack of familiarity with the region and also misperception on risk. Latin America in the last decade has produced more than 47 unicorns, right? And in our case, we've had the luck of investing in a company in Ecuador, and we helped them expand their production to Colombia and Mexico, and eight years later, they were acquired by Nestle. So our experience in Latin America is one of incredible entrepreneurial talent, of a very robust and dynamic secondary market, and a lot of technical innovation to scale operations, profits, and impact. And so we hope that by next year, we'll be able to do two more things. One of them is to create a report that serves as a catalog of engagement opportunities for the private sector in Latin America. That report will survey all the funds, all the strategies that are currently operating in Latin America and generating profits and positive impact. And the second one, of course, is to contribute to this resilience initiative with our new strategy. So my thanks again to be here, and I look forward to many more collaborations with each of you in years to come. Thank you. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:38:12]: Thank you, Tim. Fascinating. So this is the moment where we open the floor for eventual comments or questions, if there are any, or if everything is crystal clear. David Wofford [5:38:33]: Greetings, thank you. This sounds like a great facility. I'm really interested in this. I'm David Wofford with the UN Foundation. And the question is, I'd love to hear more about the kinds of investment in human development and what that means in its broad strokes. We are part of a Resilience Fund for Women in Global Value Chains, not focused in Latin America, but in South and Southeast Asia. And we'd love to replicate it with you. But this is a pooled fund of 10 global multinational apparel companies that invest. We invest in women-led organizations in four countries in those regions. And it's just interesting that when we talk about financing, we forget about corporate-owned financing and resilience. And one of the things we've discovered is that this fund was about the health. and safety of women in and around global supply chains, but that, in fact, these organizations are all directly working on climate one way or the other, and they're on the front lines when climate strikes. They're the ones dealing with gender-based violence and other things. So I'd love to hear how you see yourselves investing into the social infrastructure through this facility, whether that's a part of your thoughts. And I'd love to follow up with you whether there's interest in trying to do something similar in Latin America. We we'll have a little report on sort of trust-based philanthropy that we've modeled with the private sector and love to share it with you as well. So I'd love to hear what you're doing for human development in the funding. UNDP · Senior Partnership and Resource Mobilization Advisor · Alejandro Pacheco [5:40:11]: Alejandro. So it is a fascinating question. Thank you so much. And I'm seeing a few here that want to answer, including Leah, who would like also to add an example and we don't have much time. So I will just put one element and allow the rest of the colleagues to go into details. One of the rationales for the facility is to prioritize the region. We see much happening in other regions, and when we get to discussions, Latin America and the Caribbean comes at the end. And there are many people interested in investing in the region, but it comes at the end of the discussion when we are in global discussions, as the example you were sharing. So First and foremost, the facility places the region up front and brings together those that are interested in investing in resilient human development. I know I will let the rest of the colleagues untangle that part of the equation. Thank you. Speaker 63 [5:41:02]: Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Okay. CABEI · Executive Vice President · Jaime Roberto Diaz Palacios [5:41:09]: So, no, thank you very much. I will think like CAF, probably. We are the main arm to finance infrastructure in the region, like hospitals, like schools, and many other elements. But you know what's more important? The nature of what will increase the quality of education or health systems. It will come not only from the infrastructure, but also bringing and building the ecosystem for better doctors, for better nurses, and that's what we've been doing. And for that, a system like this, like a facility like this, it works very well. And I'll put you just one short example. We have as a country member, Korea and also Taiwan, and they have been investing through trust funds and facilities, how we improve the quality of doctors, how we improve the policy advice for ministers of health, how are they using technology and digital to do better diagnostics and also do telehealth. And these things are very important when you have rural communities, you have a difficulty in mobility and access, because sometimes hospitals are only in main cities. So happy to share that over a coffee, but I believe that this example will bring you that it's not only about money, but also about knowledge. AlphaMundi · Founding Partner and CEO · Tim Raggi [5:42:30]: Very quickly, Jaime, great question, thanks. So in the example that I gave on Ecuador, one of our portfolio companies received the Violeta Award from the government of Ecuador for that particular year, achieving the greatest impact on women. through its operations. And this new strategy that we are launching next year on climate change resilience will be applied with a gender lens, which means that we look at the role of women as suppliers, staff, and consumers of all of our companies, and we make sure that their voices are heard and they can live up to the full measure of their potential. For that, we have just signed a month ago a partnership with an organization, a nonprofit called ProMujer, which will deliver technical assistance across all of our companies in Latin America. And we also integrate the 2X global indicators in our risk and impact process for the company. So I think it's a great question and human development is very much at the core of a resilience strategy in Latin America. Thank you. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:43:29]: And perhaps if I could just add to this, that the spirit of this facility is to be able to work and collaborate across sectors here, putting the government at the center, but working with all the partners from the financial institutions, the private sector, et cetera, the academic sector. Everybody is welcome to join this facility, but the spirit is to be able to collectively generate multiple development benefits across all the SDGs. The example you heard from Ecuador, targeted specifically, the Pro-Amazonia project, targeted specifically women-led enterprises in the Amazon, helping them to transform the way they were producing coffee and cacao and helping them to access these regulated market in the EU, European Union, that are now requiring deforestation free production practices. And so those were specifically targeted. So you see, even when you channel climate finance, or nature finance, you can still use it to maximize development impacts across all the SDGs. That's the tactic. So let me see if there are other questions. Yeah, we have one there. Juan Lozano [5:44:34]: Hi, I'm Juan Lozano from Impactia. We have been working on building a digital platform that connects on one hand, innovative finance mechanisms with projects, investable companies in the region, specifically in Latham. And something we've been doing in the last two, three years is working together with various actors that come from, let's say, old school development and finance, helping them set up new mechanisms in a way facilitating how they can connect better with the finance world. And through them, we've been able to see that there is a great interest in creating impact investing funds, results per payments types of funds, all across Latin America in various social impact issues, human development issues. Now, A bit of the problem is most of them are small funds, either 8 to 10 million, maybe 15 million in the first stage of the funds. This is an opportunity for the region because there's so many of them around all the region, but at the same time, they need a lot of support. They need to better engage with development banks, with the governments. So a bit of a question is, What types of ideas do you think are on top of the table to be able to better grasp this opportunity of having so much private interest there that is not yet being able to connect, especially when Latin America is filled with a lot of investors that are followers and not necessarily leaders in funding rounds? Thank you. UNDP · Senior Partnership and Resource Mobilization Advisor · Alejandro Pacheco [5:46:20]: Thank you for the question. So We'll share the answer, and if anyone wants to join, please feel free. We believe that the opportunity lies precisely there. There is a simple saying, right? There is, on the one side, lack of information. Back in the days, 20 years ago, we created the notion of inclusive markets, and we were saying that there is misperception and lack of information for inclusive business opportunities. One piece of that equation is building the pipeline. And what you were saying is there are many puzzle elements to have a pipeline. We believe the facility can have the potential to bring that. But again, the facility is trying to work across. So making kind of that hard job to bringing those who want to come, it's voluntary to join, but those who want to come, then we will be able to build that pipeline that will have the opportunity with development banks certainly those key development banks for Latin America and the Caribbean as a region, but also national development banks who are also joining the platform, right? So that is one piece of the question that is very relevant. Please. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:47:29]: No, I think you covered it. Oh, sorry, Jean-Pierre, of course. Central African Republic · Executive Vice President · Giampiero Leoncini [5:47:33]: Thank you. No, just to add on that idea, I think that one crucial element has always been the lack of bankable projects, and we are really investing heavily in pre-investment right now to have bankable projects and to be able to attract the capital. So that will be one of the key areas which we are working in Latin America. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:47:53]: Thank you, Gianpiero, and that's a good segue. Oh, sorry, you wanted to ask something. Let me just finish then. I think it's a good segue into what I was going to say. The beauty here is that we are bringing together various institutions, agencies that all have their comparative advantages and their value propositions. And I think Giampiero just touched upon something very important. We often lack the pre-investment side of things. Nobody really is interested in that. I think that is something that we can work collectively together. In particular, I think it's a great added value of UNDP because you need to create those enabling conditions first. You need to align those policies, you need to look at the regulatory framework, you need to conduct the policy de-risking, if you want, to be able to open up the floor for investment. So that is also something we can do, work more together on. So, yes, we have a question here. I know I'm cautious of time because we need to close, but we have two questions. Let's take them. Angel Valverde [5:49:00]: Hi. Yeah, this is very quick. Yeah. Angel Valverde from Bank Ecuador, from Ecuador. So this question is about the Ecuador experience, but it's not directed to Cristina. It's directed to any one of you as an observer and critical minds. So Ecuador's experience has shown innovation and leadership in sustainable finance. So why do you think this has been the case? And what can other countries can learn from it? Thank you. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:49:36]: Maybe we can take the second question also in one go. It's down there. Yes. Italy · Maristella Ventegani [5:49:52]: I am Maristella Ventegani. I came from Italy. Excuse me for my little English. For my question, that maybe is not adapted in this context. I deal with homeless people. As a European country, I shouldn't be here asking what I'm not telling you. In Italy, there are many homeless people with regular work, contracts, and regular documents also is a strangers, migrants, but it is it isn't possible for them to have accommodation. We have many empty house and the project by investing only 20,000 euro for apartment, we could solve many problems. I, they, I speak for my city, but the problem is for Italy. My question is perhaps out of place and silly, but I don't know who to turn to. Excuse me, and thank you. UNDP · Senior Partnership and Resource Mobilization Advisor · Alejandro Pacheco [5:51:28]: So, thank you for the intervention, grazie. We are dealing now with Latin America and the Caribbean rather than Europe, right? So I might not be able to address the question directly, but definitely human mobility and nowadays with the global discussion, human security are two key elements. And we would be willing in a separate space to maybe accompany that discussion. Thank you for making the question. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:51:52]: For the question from the colleague from BanEcuador, I don't know if, Cristina, if you want to answer, otherwise I'll just give you, share some thoughts. I think what contributed to the success of the Ecuador case, if we can call it like that, is, first of all, long-term engagement between partners and the government with a long-term vision, aligning with national plans, bringing together ministries that perhaps traditionally don't always speak to each other, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment, working together. A national banking sector that is interested in working in this. And we should have mentioned the incredible role of BanEcuador that played a big role in, for example, supporting all the work that was done on deforestation-free production practices, channeling green credit lines, et cetera, and with the potential to scale it up. Quite high level of capacities also in the country, which is actually also an ingredient that is important. And perhaps let me, I see that Jaime is, wants to intervene there. CABEI · Executive Vice President · Jaime Roberto Diaz Palacios [5:53:01]: I just wanted to say something that we were talking before, that is, first of all, I think for any investor that wants to invest in the long term, having low country risk is important. So I think that is, first of all, something that you are doing good, reducing it. But the other one is putting the financial instruments to do it outcome based. That innovation, I think, is important for patient-based solutions because you need patience. So you need to think long term. If you are investing in forest, if you're investing in agribusiness, you need to be-- and you also have many climate shocks. So I think we can learn that from you. Equator is not part of the bank, so I feel very independent to say that. But I think we are also looking for this kind of solutions in the region as whole. UNDP · Senior Partnership and Resource Mobilization Advisor · Alejandro Pacheco [5:53:49]: Maybe a closing remark. I would like to thank everyone for accompanying. Thank you, and Ecuador for being here. And maybe the one piece of message I would give there is the experience is really fascinating. And in my most recent missions to Luxembourg with the European Investment Bank, they have manifested their incredible interest in this opportunity. And that is the other piece of rationale for building this facility, which is there are some incredible things happening in the region, and they are not necessarily well known. So having a facility for those that are interested in the region creates opportunity, I was just following up either yesterday or two days ago with our office in Brussels that is listening with, dealing with the office in, in Luxembourg to know where did this opportunity go with EIB, uh, and we have a strategic meeting with them. this is happening in Luxembourg at the same time, so I cannot be there. But the interest is there, the genuine interest is there, and we have the opportunity to rise those cases and make them accessible, as we were hearing from previous questions. So, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, everyone. Ecuador · Undersecretary of International Cooperation · Cristina Yolanda Camacho del Castillo [5:54:54]: I will have to say thanks to you because it is an important platform to speak about our good story and tell all the audience what is going on in Ecuador and all the important opportunities that we are facing. If you have been listening to what is happening today at the official conference, ODA is increasingly diminishing and countries, middle-income countries as Ecuador, we are looking for new ways and new financial diplomacy mechanisms that will help us in the SDGs. So thank you for this opportunity to share this story with you. UNDP · Regional Team Lead, LAC Environment and Energy Team · Lias Feruki [5:55:37]: Thank you, Cristina. And with this, we will now close the session. Maybe just to add that some of the solutions will come domestically. And we need to work together to make this happen. So let me thank you all for having participated here. Maybe just to say that the facility is not something that is going to happen. It is already operational. As you can see, we are already working together. We want to scale this up. We want to be a little bit more organized. We think, as Tim was saying, this is a region with great potential. It needs to be known. And so we all have, as I was saying before, comparative advantages. We need to bring those toolkits, as Jaime was saying, these solutions, these fit-for-purpose solutions, to a scale. And I think the facility will do three things, maybe in summary. It will help incubate, promote, generate new programs, new initiatives. It will support the countries and the government in particular, but also everybody else, to access a network-- sorry, I'm mixing Spanish with English-- a network of experts and so we can exchange experts with each other's expertise and then promote South-South collaboration. There's a great need for the countries in LAC to speak with each other, especially countries that are sharing common challenges, the countries in the Southern Cone, the countries in the Caribbean, the countries in Central America. So that is the spirit of this facility. So again, it is already operational and I invite you all who are interested. Tomorrow we have a side event that is called De-risking the Future: Building Resilience through Sustainable Finance in Latin America and the Caribbean. We will dig deeper into all of these issues that we just discussed today with some of the panelists here as well. So you are welcome. It's side event room 21. So before I close, let me just repeat the motto of this facility. The time to finance the future of our region is now. Thank you very much. UNODC · Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer · Jonathan Bourguignon [6:22:21]: Okay, that sounds good. Okay, can we? Perfect. Is it working? Good afternoon. Welcome. Welcome, everybody. Good afternoon. We will start and greetings to the colleagues and stakeholders who are attending this session online. My name is Jonathan Bourguignon. I'm a crime prevention and criminal justice officer with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime based in New York. I'm joined today by two speakers. On my left, Ms. Lisette Maritribe, acting director general of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, NORAD. Many thanks for being here today, as well as Ms. Melissa Tullis, program management officer also with the UNODC in our headquarters in Vienna. So, without further ado, I will give the floor for a few words of opening to Ms. Trebbi. Thank you. NORAD · Acting Director General · Lisette Maritribe [6:24:09]: Thank you very much and thank you for being here and thank you for having me as well. So, Norway welcomes the recognition in the Compromiso de Sevilla of anti-corruption as a cross-cutting priority and a key driver of public sector integrity, institutional trust, reduced inequality, better domestic resource allocation, and increased private investment and growth. This represents a significant advancement beyond the Addis Ababa agenda. The international community is increasingly acknowledging the importance to address enablers of economic crime. Last year's UN General Assembly resolution on combating illicit financial flows call on states to effectively investigate and prosecute professional service providers involved in or enabling criminal activity such as corruption, tax evasion and money laundering. The Compromiso de Sevilla builds on this by committing countries to regulate professional service providers at the national level and enhance international cooperation to curb illicit financial flows and related illicit activities. We see considerable untapped potential in leveraging professional service providers as gatekeepers of the financial system to prevent and counter corruption, while emphasizing the need to hold accountable those who facilitate corruption and illicit financial flows. Norway is very pleased to have endorsed the Seville Initiative for Accountable Service Providers, and we have provided funding to UNODC to launch the initiative. We are encouraged to see many partners joining this initiative, and we hope others will join as well. Thank you very much. UNODC · Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer · Jonathan Bourguignon [6:26:06]: For your support and your very encouraging words. So, yes, it's a pleasure to be here today with you to present these three really interlinked initiatives, which is why we decided to present them as UNODC for the Seville Platform for Action, SPA, because together they do form a coherent response to one of the most pressing development issues that we are all aware of, which is corruption and illicit financial flows. And corruption in this regard fuels illicit financial flows that are very interrelated. Both divert public resources, as you know, they distort revenue collection, and they undermine trust in institutions. And looking at the severe compromise, member states did commit to address these challenges as part of their financing for development agenda, which is, of course, excellent news. As we have an audience here that may not be familiar with this area of work, so let me start by introducing UNODC, which is the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. We are part of the UN Secretariat, and we are the guardian of the UN Convention against Corruption, the UNCAC as an acronym. And the UNCAC is the only legally binding anti-corruption treaty, which has now reached 191 parties, so really almost a universal adherence and ratification. So what we do is we support states' efforts at the national level, at the regional level, at the global level as well, to prevent and fight corruption. And of course, also a broad spectrum of financial crimes, as well as tackle illicit financial flows that we usually call IFFs as an acronym. I think this week we have heard a number of statements from delegations. We also heard a number of comments during some side events that really call for, in general, for concrete implementation of the outcome documents. And this is exactly for the topics of focus that we will discuss today, what these three initiatives try to achieve together. It's a full cycle of reform. It's really identifying systemic gaps, then ultimately ensuring stolen resources are returned and reinvested for development. So if we may move to the slide two, please. Thank you very much. So this is a very long title, but the idea is rather simple as a whole for this first initiative that I will present on leveraging the UNCAC, so the Convention Against Corruption, implementation review mechanism and its regional technical assistance hubs. So this is really the foundation of this interlinked three initiatives. The mechanism for the implementation of the, for the review of the implementation of the UN Convention that we call among ourselves the IRM and the anti-corruption community, it's a peer review process. And the idea is really to assist states parties to effectively implement the convention. It was launched in 2009. And the IRM has played already an essential role in identifying gaps, strengthening national anti-corruption frameworks to advance the implementation of the convention. And just to give you an idea in terms of number of the reach of this work, we have 190 countries that participate actively in the review process either as reviewers or as reviewees states. But of course, this may sound like a technical presentation, but the IRM is really much more than a reporting process. What we have seen and experienced in the last 15 years is really that it creates a unique network of anti-corruption professionals. Some of them are here in this room. It generates a rich body of information. And Ultimately, it's really a catalyzing force for dialogue on these topics, and it has led already in the past in many countries around the globe to concrete changes on anti-corruption agenda. So the initiative that we present today really draws on these 15 years of experience, which enables us to systematically identify where countries are falling short It then bridges those gaps through regional tailored technical assistance, and it's really about transforming those reviews into reform, as I said. So what we want to achieve beyond what has already been achieved in the last 15 years is simple. It's really strengthen the impacts of this review mechanism by enhancing by enhancing targeted technical assistance, and I will explain what we mean here as UNADC by technical assistance, and preparing its next phase, because this is one of the most pressing conversations amongst state parties at the moment, which is how the next phase of the review mechanism will look like. And this is really meant to be a direct contribution to help producing IFFs, strengthening integrity of public financial management and support, of course, domestic resources mobilization, which, as you know, has been really one of the key highlights of the participants to the Savi compromise. So to finish with a few concrete points and linking with the map that you see on the screen, how can we achieve this objective together? great news is that for this initiative, we have one country that has already endorsed it, France. France also endorsing the two other initiatives. But this, of course, calls for more sponsoring from other states parties to the convention and other stakeholders. But what we want to achieve is quite simple. We want to build on the review findings and really develop more technical assistance in terms of prevention, investigation and prosecution of corruption very concretely and to strengthen the capacities of authorities in the regard. And to help with that, we already have a framework and a really excellent network that is existing and we can build on this. You can see on your screen that we have in blue 10 regional platforms, which are the primary vehicle through which UNODC ensures the follow-up to the reviews. And it's also a vehicle to bring together a number of countries from the same region, which is really excellent in terms of developing collaboration, identifying lessons learned, shared challenges, and good practices. And these platforms already cover 90 jurisdictions. across the Caribbean, you will see on the map, Central America, Central Asia, Eastern Africa, Pacific, South America and Mexico, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, Western Balkans and West Africa and the Sahel. So this is for the platforms. You will see also on this same map, three pins in red. These are the three anti-corruption hubs, not to be confused with the platforms. These hubs are based in Kenya, Mexico, and Thailand. And they are really centered for field-based excellence, designed to support all countries across Latin America and the Caribbeans, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, and Africa, including, of course, the members of the regional platforms. So I will stop there and hand over the floor to Melissa to present the second initiative, and we will stand ready to address any question during the Q&A session. Thank you. UNODC · Program Management Officer · Melissa Tullis [6:34:27]: Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Jonathan, and thank you, everybody, for coming and bearing with the heat. We are extremely happy to be here. Thank you. We are extremely happy to be here, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, to support member states' efforts to secure, reliably raise and retain their own domestic resources. This is why we are here. I think a lot of participants to this very large conference, maybe 10 years ago, Before the Mbeke Panel Report, before the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, could have had a difficulty to draw the link between the need to combat financial and economic crime and... development financing. But now, over the course of the last 10 years, and with the paragraphs 24 and 25 drawing a very direct link from the Addis Ababa Action Agenda between financial and economic crime as a key dis-enabler to domestic resource mobilization and inclusive economic growth. I think we're all on the same page that we need to combat corruption, money laundering, and the financing of terrorism if we are going to continue to see sustainable development financing outcomes. And this second initiative that I'm presenting here today, which focuses on service providers, so we're talking about lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, that are all obligated to implement anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism obligations at the international level and obligations under the UN CAC and the UN TAC. This represents, this sector represents a gap. in implementation of robust financial crime compliance and enforcement. So this initiative is intended to address that gap through partnerships and through making sure that this sector, these sectors have the information that they need in order to comply with international obligations and that they can be partners to governments in that compliance and that governments have the information and the capacity building assistance that they need in order to effectively regulate these sectors. I'd like to emphasize that this initiative builds on a huge amount of progress that has been made over the course of the last 10 years, notably by the Financial Action Task Force, its members, its associate members, and its observers to strengthen the international obligations for non-bank, designated bank and non-bank financial institutions and professional service providers. And what this initiative concentrates on is now assisting the implementation of those standards and of those obligations. It has, it contains five activities. We are going to join these up to ongoing initiatives, particularly of the Financial Action Task Force and Financial Action Task Force regional bodies. We are going to work with our partners, Norway, the supporters of the initiative. in low capacity countries. We are going to work collect with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, each of which have also capacity building branches, just like we do at UNODC, in order to make sure that these gaps are closed. There's a precedent for this. The precedent is with the private sector, financial institutions, bank, financial institutions, We very much feel that the private sector is a partner to us in our work on implementing robust money laundering and terrorist financing and anti-corruption obligations. And we think that this sector can work, we can work together with this sector to make sure that they are our partners in helping to raise the bar as far as the sector is concerned. And so we can work collectively to implement these obligations, close the gaps, and make sure that countries can retain the domestic resources that they generate through the commitments that they're making here today. So thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. UNODC · Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer · Jonathan Bourguignon [6:39:36]: Thank you, Melissa. And maybe you could mention again the names of the sponsors for now, which are so Guatemala, France, Norway, of course, as mentioned, and of course, the partners that we see on the screen, Transparency International, Open Ownership, U4, and also in the room, and the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative, which gives us a perfect transition to the last initiative that we wanted to present to you before opening the floor. So for this last initiative, we can move to the next slide. Thank you very much. So we're going to present to you the last and third initiative on the Global Forum on Asset Recovery, GFAR, as an acronym, action series. Again, a long name, but we call it usually just the G4 Action Series. For this one, the sponsors are following France, Switzerland, the UK, and Zambia, and we are glad that some of them are able to join today with some of the partners that I mentioned later as long-term partners of this initiative itself. So the starting point on that is one that has been acknowledged for a long time by member states. Already in Addis, there was, I believe, language directly on asset recovery as being a very important element when talking about financing for development. And we saw that there were, again, very interesting commitments and language in the outcome document of the CERI compromise on this topic. This is because everyone knows that financial resources loss to corruption account to really significant amount of the GDPs of any country, and yet only a fraction of this vast amount of money or funds resulting from the corrupt practices are effectively confiscated and ultimately returned to the country of origin when it's a transnational case. And when you look at global asset recovery efforts, they still encounter a number of really significant obstacles, be them institutional obstacles, legal obstacles, practical ones, and they all stand in the way, not just of this very specific goal of ensuring that these assets are returned, sorry, recovered and returned to the economy, but also more widely achieving the sustainable development goals, the SDGs. So the GIFA Action Series and the initiative that is put forward in this context is really about putting recovery into action. It's an approach that focuses on practitioners because we know that there are a number of practitioners that are really the key actors for these asset recovery cases to move forward and be completed, and really helping them making tangible progress ongoing transnational cases by facilitating communication and of course as well very concretely negotiations among both the requested and the requesting countries. So if I could give you very shortly just a bit more background on the GFA Action Series, this was launched in July 2023 initially by three countries, the US, the UK and France. And the idea was really to work in the framework of the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative, the STAR Initiative, which is a joint World Bank and UNODC initiative, but also partner with the International Center for Asset Recovery, ICAR, as well as what we call the IACCC, the International Anti-Corruption Coordinating Center. And the goal is really, um, to support these countries and then, um, help them successfully exit the action services, the idea is not to sustain support, uh, in, um… and limited ways, really that after a period of assistance, hopefully successful assistance, and we will give you some examples of those, and after they have built significantly the contacts, the understanding, the networks, and the capacity, they can make inroads of specific cases, and they can exit successfully the action series. So the way this is achieved is by really focusing on the countries of origin with ongoing international cases, including in, of course, past conflicts or regime change scenarios, which require a rapid intervention, as you can imagine. The idea is really to foster political will by bringing both the requested countries and the requesting countries together, create a collaborative environment and then move to the practical, more technical collaboration, bring them in the room together in what we call the case consultation meetings, also streamlining the asset recovery processes and encouraging ultimately a more active role of the requested jurisdiction. And this is done also sometimes in the margins of large international conferences as this one, of course, not with this focus, but for example, the Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention Against Corruption has been a platform in the margin of which some really excellent collaboration between prosecutors and other practitioners took place. So to close on this initiative, I wanted to give you two concrete examples of why it can really bring, uh, change and impact, uh, for, for, for this, uh, AVR work. because it has already proved successful in a number of jurisdictions. The first example I wanted to share with you is Moldova, which is one of the first countries that really supported, that joined the GFA Action Series, and it has experienced success in multiple cases. I'm not going to drown you, of course, with information and details, but just to give you one concrete example, last year, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court maintained a block on a villa in Geneva linked to Vladimir Plahotniuc, and $100 million was frozen by a foreign jurisdiction in a money laundering case related to the Laundromat scheme. So that's one example. Moving to another region of the world, Nigeria specifically, which has been an excellent partner as well within the G5 Action Series. Just in last January, there was a public announcement of an agreement being reached, thanks to the support of the GIFA platform, between Nigeria, the US, and the World Bank to transfer $53 million in forfeited assets to Nigeria to be used specifically for electrification projects across the country and to be dispersed through a World Bank trust fund. So here again, you see really the direct connection between this kind of efforts and the development and the effectiveness of the, of this development support. So, I will stop there, but of course, there will be much more to say about the, this, uh, this initiative. and a lot in particular on the website of the STAR Initiative. And you also have a very interesting database where you can look up for specific countries, specific crimes as well. And some of this information is even for ongoing cases. So it can be also very interesting to the media and civil society communities. So That ends the presentation, and I think we'll probably hand over to you if you want to make any interventions. We can have a microphone being shared in the room, or any questions on any of these initiatives. Really, the key message is that this is not the end or just the announcement of these initiatives, but they are still very much ongoing. open to sponsorships and of course to contribution. We had a generous contribution from Norway, uh, from the, the, the second one, but of course many of them will require more, uh, financial support. So, uh, this being said, maybe we, we can, uh, hand over to you. Thank you. UNCAC Coalition · Anna [6:48:26]: Thank you. Can you hear me? It's not okay. So thank you very much. My name is Anna. I represent, uh, the ONCAT coalition. Um, I, I want to thank the three of you for the... The sound is not very good, no? Yeah, okay. I basically want to thank you for the initiatives that you just presented. We are an umbrella organization. You are our partners on many of the areas we work on. And we have been following very closely how anti-corruption was, and we have been trying to embed anti-corruption in the financing for development agenda. Concretely, on the initiatives that you have presented, I wanted to focus on the first one, on the implementation review mechanism, to highlight that our members, so the civil society involved in anti-corruption, have many tools that are available also to help governments, to help technical assistance on the implementation of the convention. Some of our partners as well work in the area of enablers or following up asset recovery processes. But I wanted to highlight the parallel reports that we produce on UNCAC implementation. And since you mentioned that you are going to work detecting the gaps in UNCAC implementation that are in the UNCAC reviews of each country. if this is also something that you will take into account, the dozen of national level parallel reports that our members prepare and that we help them produce. So the civil society input also that focuses very much on the implementation and on how the laws and the institutions work in practice, which is very much always the focus of civil society, not only if the laws are in place, but if the implementation is working well. And I obviously have to take every chance to encourage everyone to take a stronger stance for a better review mechanism in the next phase. So the governments are negotiating at the moment on this. And as a civil society network, we are calling for a more transparent network, a more transparent mechanism. We think there's much more to work on that. and more inclusive of civil society because we believe that we are really a good partner in the fight against corruption. Thank you very much. UNODC · Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer · Jonathan Bourguignon [6:51:13]: And do you want to have maybe another question if there is any intervention, then I will respond. So maybe you can start with, uh, with a response and thank you so much, uh, for being here. Uh, I think it, uh, the UNCA Coalition has been, uh, excellent partner in both at, uh, in Geneva, at the UN headquarters, but also in the, in the field with all the networks of, uh, civil society organizations. I think when it comes to the second phase, we will leave it to, of course, the states parties to see how they want to move forward. And it will be exciting to see in the next few months what will be the discussions in Vienna and towards the Cosp in Qatar in December. But just getting back to the technical assistance bit, and remember that I mentioned a number of platforms. I think this is already the case, I hope so, that, you know, in many of these events that we organize, both at the national and regional level, in the framework of the anti-corruption platforms, civil society is invited and participates. And many of these participants are actually, of course, members of the UNCAC coalition. So that's something that is important, I think, as well, if I could mention, as well, the work that you do on some specific subject topics, very important thematic areas. I'm not going to name them all, but I think it's also helpful for the anti-corruption community to have a wider understanding of the gaps and the policy and priorities and fit in the conversations for states parties. Thank you. Okay, do we have any other intervention? Perfect. Yes, please go ahead. Transparency International [6:53:00]: Thank you. Thank you. I have a question, maybe linking perhaps two of the platforms for action that have been listed. and following colleague from UNCAC Coalition previously to connect to that as well. Within the outcome document from the compromise of this year, there is this commitment to professional service providers, hence the platform here, which we're very excited to see in Transparency International, and of course, very grateful to be a part of the platform itself. But to tie it into COSP and the UNCAC space, it seems like a very logical space to actually bring life to that commitment within the F50 outcome. So I guess it'd be great to just hear views generally on, of course, there are other elements, other crimes that lead into illicit financial flows, but a big one for us, of course, is corruption, and we'd be really ambitious to see a country bring that forward in this year's UNCCP or at least take on that issue. So I guess thoughts on the merits of that? Any advice on who would be well placed to take that forward? UNODC · Program Management Officer · Melissa Tullis [6:54:04]: Thank you very much. I'm afraid you're preaching to the converted because I am always going to be an advocate for an extremely robust resolution at the United Nations on preventing economic and financial crime. We could have one that targets professional service providers, And I think that I'm sure there are many member states that would be interested in supporting such a resolution, actually, because this actually is an area that is a gap. But certainly, I mean, just since I have the floor, there have been, you mentioned the other proceeds generating crimes. I mean, I think what is important for us to take away from this is because here we're talking about domestic resource mobilization. We're talking about triggers for inclusive economic growth. So we're talking about raising a level of finance. We're talking about assets and money and value and resources. Right. And I think we need to think about this we need to focus on this broader area as well in our own work, right, at UNODC and within, with the member states of our governing bodies to make sure that we're really talking about crime proceeds that are generated by the widest range of proceeds generating crimes. So we're really focused on the values and the value chains and the damage and the impact that they have on the global economy, on financial stability, on financial integrity overall. But certainly, I mean, you know, thanks to the Mbeke report and thanks to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, I don't think there's any disagreement anymore that the link between the need to combat economic crime and having a reliable basis on which to ground your development efforts is absolutely necessary and important, particularly now when resources are constrained. Jonathan. UNODC · Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer · Jonathan Bourguignon [6:56:30]: Thank you, Melissa. I think you said it all. And I mean, I would say beyond, of course, the the issue of the resolutions and let's see what states parties will come forward with. That will be interesting. I will also mention, because this is a very multi-pronged conversation, one on professional service providers, I think side events to CASP would be also an excellent platform. The call for applications, I believe, is already open, so maybe that could also be an opportunity to bring some of these professional networks and show them how they can be gatekeepers in some cases. So Yeah, that would be also, I think I would encourage them to do so. UNODC · Program Management Officer · Melissa Tullis [6:57:10]: I forgot one point, because now we're talking about the future. So let's not forget the opportunity of the 2026 Crime Congress as well. That is every ten years. It's an enormous opportunity to elaborate calls for action and to really call for some robust focus on financial crime. UNODC · Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer · Jonathan Bourguignon [6:57:33]: Do we have any other reactions in the room? The mentions. Okay, but yeah, thank you again then to all the partners who join in the room today and to everyone who came to listen and learn. We are here. If you want to learn more, you will see on the last slide, if you can put it on the screen, the mail e-mail address on which you can reach us to discuss more any of these initiatives. So thank you again for your interest and of course the best is yet to come, hopefully. Thank you. Moderator · Dr. Rodney Riviere [7:22:44]: You gonna go? Yes, good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Namaskar. It's very nice to see you, that you've come out to listen to us and to learn more about our platform. I have the extreme. It's not, am I not audible? I'm sorry, Samir. Yes. I'm not audible. Am I audible now? Yes. Okay. Yes, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Namaskar, Buenos tardes, Schen guten Tag. Thank you all for coming to our event here, where we are going to have the pleasure of introducing you to the India-Germany Platform for Investment in Renewable Energies Worldwide. My name is Dr. Rodney Riviere, and me and my co-moderator here will be leading us through the events this afternoon. We have about a 30-minute period to get you a little bit more familiar with the Investors' Platform, as well as get some perspectives from our speakers here from different angles and different aspects of how this platform can exist and how it can help to promote the investments in renewable energies worldwide. Launched last fall by the former BMZ Minister Svenja Schulze and the MNRE Minister, Mr. Prahalad Joshi, the platform facilitates investments in renewable energy in India, combining information, networking, and technical support in an innovative way to create and identify investment opportunities on the ground. We are looking to support investors and business businesses large and small, and strengthening global supply chains and renewable energies. For further enlightenment from the German government's perspective, it's my extreme pleasure to introduce Dr. Bärbel Kofler, the Parliamentary Secretary of State for the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, otherwise known as the BMZ. Dr. Kofler is a member of the German Parliament since 2004. And she has then had the held the position of development policy spokesperson for the Social Democrat Party, the SPD in Germany from 2013 to 2016. Since 2021, she has been the parliamentary state secretary to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Dr. Kofler, please. Yes, please. Germany · Parliamentary State Secretary · Dr. Bärbel Kofler [7:25:36]: Well, thank you very much. I'm very honored and pleased to be part of this presentation of our inter-German platform we want to launch today. And I'm very happy because we all know that we are facing financing emergencies. That's why we are here at this conference in Seville, the fourth conference on the financing development. And we strongly believe that we have to add with new ideas to the whole idea on reaching the Sustainable Development Goals. Germany strongly supports the Seville Platform for Action, or shortly SPI, as we see here also on the slide. And we think it helps to convert the political ambition of this conference into concrete solutions. And a leading example of such a concrete solution is, is it not loud enough, is it better now? Okay, that's a challenge with all the mics and all the other sounds and noises surrounding us, but if it's better now, thank you very much. Thank you for that. Well, I was just pointing out that a leading example for such concrete solution for the SPI is, in our strong belief, the India-Germany platform for investment in renewable energy worldwide. It's a joint initiative, as it was pointed out, by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. And I'm very happy and I'm very pleased that UNDESA chose this platform as one of the SPI initiatives, especially as the platform aims encompass one of the key targets of this UN conference, mobilizing private sector to achieve the SDGs. Well, it was pointed out that it was launched last year by Indian Minister Pradyoshi and former BMZ Minister Svenja Schulze. The importance of that platform was reaffirmed at the seventh Indo-German cabinet consultation held by Indian Prime Minister Modi and former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. last year at the end of October. And the platform also falls under the umbrella of the German-Indian Green and Sustainable Development Partnership. The co-created multi-stakeholder platform addresses renewable energy investment challenges in one of the world's fastest growing economies, in India. It supports India's target of installing 500 gigawatt of renewable energy by 2030. Contributing directly to the goals of the Paris Agreement and of COP28 in Dubai and including dribbling global renewable, renewables by 2030. That firm tackles institutional, technical, and market barriers through direct cooperation between the German and the Indian governments and between, and that's the important and the new thing, the private sector, academia, and civil society in both our countries. This includes cooperating on skills and training standards, technology transfer, partnership between business associations in new areas like wind energy, biogas, and storage, areas in which partnerships have not previously existed in such a holistic form. The platform will mobilize knowledge, investments, and direct business cooperation, facilitating the smooth deployment of renewable energy technologies and their integration into global renewable energy supply chains. It will help establish an additional international hub for renewable energy manufacturing in India, and that helps reduce dependencies. While Germany brings technical expertise and institutional support to this partnership, our approach facilitates cooperation between German and Indian companies, technical institutions, and civil society. We aim to crowd in private capital, de-risk investment, and design innovative market-responsive financial instruments. Importantly, the platform mainstreams gender equality in investment decisions, and it promotes women entrepreneurship, support their participation in research and development, and enhance women's roles across India's renewable energy sector. As a strategic partner of India, Germany sees this platform as a cornerstone of our bilateral cooperation and a replicable model, hopefully for other parts of the world, might be in Asia or might be also on the African continent. Through this platform, Germany and India are not just accelerating renewable energy deployment, they are redefining how strategic, inclusive, future-oriented partnerships can shape the global energy transition. Germany stands ready to move the agenda forward and to turn it into a real change. We will remain a reliable partner for international cooperation, especially in the area of just energy transition, and take the lead in forging strong alliances like the alliance we have with India and that project to achieve our common goals. Thank you very much. Co-Moderator · Kritika [7:31:21]: Thank you, Dr. Kofler, for your insightful remarks and not only outlining the genesis of the platform, but also the approach, its goals for advancing the India-German bilateral cooperation. Thank you. Namaskar and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Kritika and I now have the honor of introducing you to Mr. Santosh Kumar Sarangi, the Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India, the key partner ministry on the Indian side. Secretary Sarangi sends his regrets that he cannot be here today at SEWA at such short notice. However, he's prepared a video message for us all on this important occasion, which we'll now share with you. In his earlier role, Secretary Sarangi has held the position of Director General of Foreign Trade in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in the Government of India. And now, without further delay, please direct your eyes to the screen behind me for a video message straight from the desk of Secretary Sarangi. India · Secretary · Santosh Kumar Sarangi [7:32:25]: Honorable dignitaries, colleagues and friends, good evening and namaskar. I am pleased to speak today at this press briefing with regard to Sevilla Platform for Action, one of the important deliverables of Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. The India-Germany platform for investments in renewable energies worldwide is a symbol of deep-rooted cooperation and forward-looking mechanism to attract and channel global investments in renewable energy. This platform is envisaged not just as bilateral initiative, but a global model for how partnership can unlock solutions to one of the major challenges of our time, that is the transition towards cleaner energy. India today stands an example of this transformation in the renewable energy sector. Despite the concentration of global renewable energy value chains, particularly in solar PV technologies and battery manufacturing, India has taken significant steps to reduce dependency and build self-reliance. Through production-linked incentives and focused R&D, India has now rapidly emerged as a major player in domestic manufacturing. And today we have more than 90 gigawatt of solar module manufacturing and more than 30 gigawatt of cell manufacturing facility in India. In addition, we intend to have a localizer manufacturing as well as green hydrogen production up to 5 million tons by 2030 in India. policy framework has remained steady and investor friendly, driven by long term goals and transparency. We are among the few countries that have not only met but exceeded our earlier NDC targets. Today we have almost 230 gigawatt of RE capacity and well on track to achieve 500 gigawatt of non-fossil based power capacity. Initiatives like green energy corridors, solar parks, PM Kusum initiative to do farm level solarization, rooftop solarization through flagship schemes like PM Surya Ghar scheme. We intend to universalize solarization in many spheres. Through platforms such as the International Solar Alliance, India seeks to leverage international cooperation for enabling technology sharing, capacity building, and concessional financing for developing countries, particularly across the Global South. Friends, the India-Germany platform is not just a bilateral dialogue, it is a gateway for shared progress. It can serve as a catalyst to mobilize capital, align standards, and create resilient supply chains. By leveraging each other's strengths, we can together shape a more sustainable, equitable, and secure energy for the world. Thank you. Co-Moderator · Kritika [7:36:21]: With that important message from MNRE, I would like to now draw your attention back to the stage. We are in the midst of an august group of speakers and I now welcome Mr. Gaurav Kedia, currently serving as the Chairman of the Indian Biogas Association. Thank you for joining us today. Mr. Kedia brings with him a wealth of experience combining scientific expertise in renewable energies with entrepreneurial vision. Mr. Kedia has led initiatives in RE adoption in India, armed with policy advocacy and most importantly at the back of collaborations with the Indian public and the private sector. Mr. Garia, the lectern is yours. Thank you. Chairman · Gaurav Kedia [7:37:04]: So thanks a lot. Before I start, is my voice clear at the back? Yep. Okay, great. Thank you. Namaste, good afternoon. Very glad to be over here. I think we can't summarize better than what Mr. Sarangi said. This platform is a gateway for the progress which we are going to do it together as far as this Indo-German platform is concerned. So basically, if I take a step back and if you really see, right now we live in a world where when we talk about sustainable development goal, it's not just a top level target. This is something which is going to enable the action on the ground or already enabling the action on the ground. That's why it's very important that we talk about and we act as well as far as the approach is concerned. It's a bottom up approach that is ground up approach because in this manner we can really talk about the real impact on the ground. Otherwise, you know, when you talk about lowering, sorry, empowering local community coming out with entrepreneurs, when you talk about rural India or rural anywhere in the world, this will not be the reality. It has to be the bottom-up approach; that is the point #1, and that is something this platform is going to bring as well, and this is how we are working all the time, so... Next to this, when you talk about any project which is deeply rooted in the real world, it has to have, again I repeat, it has to have a proper 360 degree feedback mechanism because you need to ensure that a continuous feedback mechanism is coming to you from the ground. So in this manner, we can use this kind of feedback for the right policy advocacy. And this is a dynamic in nature, right? Because you have a new problem, you have a new solution, you talk about right technology, you talk about the more inclusive technology as well, because ultimately, you know, we just don't want to talk about the progress, which is measurable. We want to talk about the progress, which is also meaningful. That's why it's very important to have this 360 degree feedback or circularity, you know, in reality, that is the point number two. And third point, which is very, very close to my heart personally, that, you know, this energy transition, we keep talking about We really cannot achieve that in silos. We have to work together. That's why the word inclusiveness has got a lot of practical implication. We really need to come together. We really need to come as a team because I'm very sure we all have something good in us and we have to just bring those experience. In English, there is a saying when you read something, you gain the knowledge. Perhaps we have a lot of knowledge, but when you do something, you gain the experience, you gain the feel. We really need to come together and try to understand what feels what will fit best in the scenario, let's say in this case, in Indian scenario and in German scenario. And all the time we talk from the technical side, financial side and social side. So the third point from my side is this inclusiveness in an applied manner, in a real manner. Last but not the least, I would personally like to emphasize and this is how we are going to talk about or work with this platform as well. MSME, medium and small enterprises, because ultimately they are the backbone of any economy you talk about. And if you really see and if you really talk about the decentralized renewable energy, they are not only going to be the creator, they are also going to be the consumer. So when you talk about the circular economy in a hyper local manner, I think MSME is a key. We really need to ensure that MSME is really at the center in order to really bring this circularity at the core. So thanks a lot. That's it from my side. And I really hope that this platform is not just going to be the only platform. This is going to be a movement which we are going to do it together as far as the public and private firms are concerned. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Moderator · Dr. Rodney Riviere [7:41:18]: Thank you, Gaurav. It's very nice that we can get such clear guidance and clear viewpoint from the private sector. Our next speaker will also give us a perspective from the private sector, and this is Professor Dr. Dorte Fokke, and she is the founder and director of the European Renewable Energies Federation, which is an umbrella organization based in Brussels, I believe. Yes. She specializes in European law and international legal relations with a focus on trade, infrastructure, energy, and environmental law. She advises various companies and financial institutions and business associations in Germany and in the EU. Please, Dr. Forke. EREF · Founder and Director · Dorte Fokke [7:42:06]: My colleague just said it all, I think. I'm very happy to be here. I convey the message of the independent power producers from all renewable energies in the European Union, which is EREF, and it's an associative, so we are an umbrella. And the German associations are all member and co-founders of it. So that's why they asked me to come here and to speak and give some input. And I think I have to congratulate the Indian government and the German government and also GIZ to have made a sort of leapfrog or quantum step ahead with this concrete approach. We have tons of papers, and you can fill whole rooms with it. But this might be, or this is in my view, and I've been around this for more than 30 years in renewable energies, this may make helping a difference. We do have a lot of cooperation going on anyhow already, which should not be belittled. Industry, small and medium-sized industry or bigger, In principle, they know how to talk to each other and to do business together. We have representatives of the business desks already here. But GIZ, especially in this place and in a world, and I take half a minute, where USAID is given up and has been put aside and into a dustbin, is one of the pillars for democratic change, also in energy system. And I thank you for giving the opportunity for the industry to say that here allowed. In our world of renewable energy, we have this energy system change. We have it, we heard it from India, 50 gigawatt and going on and strong. And we have it in Europe. And what I find very good is that this initiative, this platform, blends very well in the clean industrial deal we have now in Europe put on the table. And part of that deal is interesting for us both is increase structured increase of industrial GDP. And it's the same we hear from the Ministry and Industry, in strategic increase of industrial GDP. And we will be part of that, not thanks, and many thanks to the German government and the Indian government. I always say big and small, we need them all when it comes to renewables. And so we do need, what we need from this project is easy access to investment structure and bottlenecks in both countries or in third countries when our industry want to join forces. So that we need. And then on the social thing, because the social umbrella is a big part for the small projects under access to energy, we also need access to wealth. So when something happens in the rural community, the rural community has to have a right to benefit from it. Then you can do what, then you have the full support. So not only that they get then access to that energy, but also to some of the wealth. That's one thing. And then I would envisage personally, we talked a little bit yesterday in preparing for bigger ventures, that we look into tandem projects. So for example, I'm working now as a lawyer for an initiative which will be highly sponsored if it goes ahead from the government of Lower Saxony in Germany to build not only a huge new solar panel factory, but embedded in electronics in hydrogen, in all things around and situated strategically very importantly at a deep sea harbor, obviously. And if we could do a tandem and replicate the same with a similar actor, so taking the Indian colleagues on board and saying, okay, we do the same at the port here in India, then we would have also the finance people to be more interested. Yes, there will be finance people also from China, but if we if you take care that you don't take, that you keep the shares in order, and that's the question lawyers can do, for example, helping, it can work. And then I come at the end, because I talk too long, to education. We all have a skill problem. And So for one thing, I would like to have a clever work with intelligent, artificial intelligence. And my dream in Germany, also in Europe at the moment, I gave it a trademark already. It's permit to go. So for small and, uh, and… slightly bigger projects, you have to make it with an app. And you do not have to reinvent the wheel for each five megawatt projects. I mean, go packing. I'm hating that. We need more joint effort because it's no longer on the renewable technology. We should talk about flexibility. We need standardization of the grid system in India and in Germany to welcome everything, the flexibility, the hydrogen, the electrolysis. The sustainable aviation fuel, all that is a package now. And when I talked to that, I said Tandem would be a good lesson to take or Flagship would be very, very good and for skills, just in the end. Now I make publicity for a German car company, but it is just because it's a good program. It's called BMW, and they have a step program in the United States of America. When they went there and they didn't find skilled labor, they said, "We train them ourselves." And it's a very interesting program, which is first for the automatic technicians, so for the people on the front line, and then it is scholarly programs for further And, you know, when you speak to people in America who work at BMW and are colored, they say BMW doesn't stay for Bayerische Motorenwerke, it stays for black men at work, and they're very proud. So I think taking experience from sectors who have gone already in the skill can only help us. So it's enough. Danke. Co-Moderator · Kritika [7:48:54]: Thank you, Dr. Fuke, for sharing your thoughts and also outlining the very important role that the platform is now going to be playing with the German private sector as well. It's now my pleasure to introduce you to and call upon Mr. Hayashuta, the Deputy Director of the OECD Development Cooperation Directorate. At the core of the 2030 agenda, Mr. Schuetz's work focuses on mobilizing public and private resources to address the sustainable development challenges. His experience brings extensive experience with the KfW and the ILO only adds to what we are setting out to do today. We are really grateful to have you. The floor is yours. OECD · Deputy Director · Mr. Hayashuta [7:49:46]: Thank you so much. First of all, I would like to really thank the governments of India and Germany for asking the OECD to address you. We would really like to applaud the government of India for their successful efforts in unlocking renewable investments under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi. As has been mentioned by the Minister, India has an ambitious target of reaching 500 gigawatt of non-fossil fuel based energy by 2030. And this positions India really at the top ranking of countries worldwide when it comes to renewable energy installed capacity, wind power capacity, as well as solar power capacity. Now these efforts are obviously supported by the Indo-German platform for investment in renewable energies worldwide. And it is through the leadership of Germany that this platform is obviously coming together as well. Now, the OECD has long collaborated with India as one of its key partners since 27, actually, including a program that aims to provide clean energy finance and investment mobilization. Shortly, the CFM program. Now, let me say a few words about the CFM program. It supports selected emerging economies. in strengthening their domestic enabling conditions for clean energy investments, as well as in creating pipelines for bankable projects, be it in renewable energy, energy efficiency, the green hydrogen, or the decarbonization of industry. As has been amply elaborated during this conference, obviously we are aware that emerging markets and development economies have additional challenges in unlocking capital to invest broadly into their sustainable infrastructure, and obviously clean energy is no exception to that. Approximately, the cost of capital for emerging markets and developing economies are being assumed to be at twice as high as in advanced economies. Now, reaching the 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030 comes with a price tag, something estimated about 200 billion US dollars. There are also additional investments that are necessary in electricity transmission, distribution, and energy storage. Needless to say that renewable energy is more and more becoming the least cost energy source. So they are great, besides the cost, they are great savings that we as the OECD see forthcoming for India and other emerging economies. Let me just briefly mention two areas where the OECD is advising India in order to make this transition possible. One is in capitalizing private capital through de-risking and other financial instruments for renewable energy, such as targeted blended finance facilities for offshore wind power. or there has been also the recent approval of the viability gap funding by India. We are developing policy advice on that topic, which we will present at the COP30 in Berlin later this year. Uh, second area is, uh, as I have been saying, uh, there needs to be sufficient investment in the transmission grid infrastructure, we're all aware, including here in Europe, uh, that this is a, a key, can become a key, uh, bottleneck for renewable power integration. So India's independent transmission project scheme has attracted, fortunately, significant long term domestic and international financing. Once again, the OECD is doing analytical work on this topic of how emerging markets and developing economies can basically unlock this capital and what are the lessons learned across many countries, including obviously also, uh, OECD member countries, and we will also provide this, um, uh, analytical work and the policy recommendation towards the end of this year. Let me just to conclude, two additional areas that we see as critical. One is the capacity and the capitalization of institutions that provide funding. India has a very, very powerful commercial and development finance banking sector. So we see that India is well positioned to mobilize this funding. And I think the funding that is forthcoming for this transmission network is an testimony to that. And then let me also say that worldwide, including also in India, but also in OECD member countries, we need to address outstanding regulatory barriers in order to address cross-border financing for sustainable infrastructure, including for renewable energy. So with that, just to conclude, once again, congratulations to India and Germany in having the platform not only launched, but also recognized here as part of the CBI platform of action. And obviously, the OECD stands ready to support this platform going forward and become a full success. With that, thank you very much. Moderator · Dr. Rodney Riviere [7:55:56]: Yes, thank you, Hayat. It's very good to hear that OECD is really strongly working also in a similar direction, and I'm looking forward to working together in that area. We're about out of time, so I would open the floor to any questions. If we have time, we could take two or three questions if there is anyone. We have microphones available. Yes, sir. We can direct it to the speakers. Biojith Joshi [7:56:19]: Good afternoon. My name is. Okay, is it working? Moderator · Dr. Rodney Riviere [7:56:25]: Okay, yes. Biojith Joshi [7:56:26]: Good afternoon, my name is Biojith Joshi. I work for a renewable energy project in Bangladesh called Renewable Lady. So what we do, we help Bangladeshi women to become entrepreneur through solar energy. And we also have established Africa, Asia, renewable energy collaborative. So how can our network, our country, because I saw like renewable energy worldwide, so how we can engage with this initiative? Moderator · Dr. Rodney Riviere [7:56:57]: Okay. Germany · Parliamentary State Secretary · Dr. Bärbel Kofler [7:57:07]: Does it work? Yes. Yes, okay, perfect. That's a really good question. Thank you for that because at the end of the day, that is the first time that we launched a platform like that with the inter-German investment and with our private sector together. If this platform is successful, and I'm quite sure it will be successful, we are, of course, there for opening up for other countries and for other partners who are interested in that. So that's why I very much welcome your question. We have to make this platform successful. We were starting last year in September. So that's important to know that we are almost, well, half a year, a little bit plus half a year old. And we are doing our best to do our homework to be a successful platform and to organize everything, and if that's successfully working, we are here to spread out and we are here to be maybe hopefully also a model for other corporations. anyway, for us, it's very important to work together with partner countries around the globe in a kind of triangular, um, cooperational system. So there could be also something that we together, India, Germany together, working with partners in other countries on the Asian continent, on the African continent, wherever it's wanted and needed. So we are here for reaching out. We have to get it to work it successfully, and we are here to reach out then. Moderator · Dr. Rodney Riviere [7:58:34]: Thank Any further questions? Another question? Then I'd like to thank, first of all, I'd like to thank very much our speakers today for their informative insights and their support for the platform that we've gotten, and particularly the critical support we have from BMSET and from MNRE for us to move forward with this platform. And we're looking forward to then really getting substance and as the platform takes for more and more flesh and as it takes on a much more active role in networking building in renewable energy investments as well as providing the essential information for potential investors and companies. And we also look forward to working with the critical private sector and other development partners such as OECD. So thank you very much. And with this, we are going to close our session for today. Thank you very much. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [8:44:49]: Okay. Hello. Hello. Right? It's okay? Uh I was. Yeah, so we have another one at six. Uh so we have. Okay. Uh good afternoon everybody. I am Samu Gume Kojo. I'm from Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Uganda. Uganda is now the current, we are the co-chair of the Coalition of Finance Ministers on Climate Action. The coalition has 99 member countries. We are looking ahead to getting the 100th one. We don't know who that will be, but we are looking ahead, there are countries coming. Our major objective as a coalition really is to make sure that we get ministers of finance engaged in climate action within our mandate as ministers of finance, which is so that we increase financial flows towards adaptation, mitigation, but at the same time for us, we think about involvement. The SDGs here come into play. These three things, I call them MAD. mitigation, adaptation and involvement. So these are things we are looking at and we have six principles. But today we are honored because to understand how to invest into adaptation and mitigation, you need to understand the risks and opportunities. And to do that, you need to use tools. So with our partners, UNECA, C3A, In collaboration with the Coalition of Finance Ministers on Climate Action, we've come up with an initiative, macroeconomic action for climate resilience in Africa. We call it MACRA. Today, I'm so excited that we are going to have this launched. And here with us, we have two-- three, I'll add myself in also, but two important people Hanna Nasse, I hope I've made the pronunciations right, Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist, Uneca. She's going to give us her remarks so that we launch this officially. Hanna, please take your seat in front. And then we have Pierra Tota, right also. Okay, if I've made a, you forgive me, as usual, you do that, I'll accept. Head of 4P Secretariat. They'll tell you about 4P, they'll tell you about Secretariat, as I've told you about the Coalition of Finance Ministers on Climate Action, and the importance of this, what we call MACRA, in terms of understanding resilience, in terms of understanding investment in adaptation, in terms of investing in mitigation, but more importantly, looking at it as a development agenda and ensuring that we meet the SDGs. I'll sit with them, Sam Mugume also. At some point, I'll make some remarks at the end. I'd like to thank you. And Hannah, it's right to you. Thank you. UNECA · Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist · Hanan Morsy [8:48:24]: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, excellencies, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great honor to welcome you today to this event for the launch of the Macroeconomic Action for climate resilience in Africa. It's an initiative that is jointly developed by the UN Economic Commission for Africa, along with the Africa, the Coalition for Capacity on Climate Action, C3A, in partnership with the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. Africa today stands at a defining moment. Our continent is confronting triple crisis, rising debt burdens, escalating climate impact, and at the same time, shrinking fiscal space. These intersecting challenges threaten to reverse decades of progress, of development progress, and require bold and coordinated action. Economic growth across Africa remains too weak to actually meaningfully reduce poverty or absorb the continent's fast-growing youth population. While growth is projected to increase modestly from 3% in 2023 to 3.4% in 2024, it barely outpaces population growth, which stands at around 2.4% annually. Meanwhile, youth unemployment exceeds 60% in countries such as South Africa and Djibouti, reflecting a deep disconnect between growth and opportunity. Public finances are stretched thin. Over half of low-income African countries are at or in or at risk of debt distress. In more than a dozen, debt servicing now surpass spending on public health. In Ghana, for example, more than 70% of tax revenues in 2022 went to interest payments alone. At the same time, borrowing costs remain prohibitively high. Kenya's Eurobond yield exceeded 15% in 2023, compared to around 3% in developed economies. Also, climate risks compound these challenges. Africa contributes less than 4% of global emissions, yet it's among the most climate-vulnerable regions globally. In 2023 alone, over 30 million across the continent were displaced by weather-related disasters. And yet, climate adaptation remains drastically underfunded. Africa needs an estimated 53 billion US dollars annually for adaptation by 2030. However, today it receives less than 10 billion US dollars a year, less than 20% of what it needs, with only a quarter of climate finance actually directed to adaptation. This is precisely the gap that this initiative is designed to address. The initiative seeks to reimagine macroeconomic governance in a climate constrained world by supporting ministries of finance and central banks in integrating climate scenarios into core fiscal and monetary decision-making, such as budgeting, inflation targeting, debt management, and investment planning. It also intends to provide policymakers with tools such as macroecological scenario models, green fiscal trackers, and climate-informed financial supervision frameworks to help shift from reactive responses to more proactive, resilience-driven planning. The aim is to lay the foundation for more inclusive, climate-resilient, and fiscally sustainable development across Africa. By 2025, the initiative intends to pilot these tools in at least three African countries and to produce related guidance materials and case studies. By 2026, it's expected to consolidate initial results, promote peer learning, publish an operational note to support broader regional uptake and scaling. Let me conclude by emphasizing that the initiative is more than a technical solution. It's a platform for partnerships and a catalyst for transformation. It represents a call for action for African institutions, international partners, and global development community to rethink macroeconomic governance in the context of changing climate. By strengthening economic foresight and coordination, it will empower African governments to better anticipate and manage climate risks, lower the cost of capital, and mobilize the green investments needed for a sustainable future. We look forward to working with all of you to bring this vision to life. Thank you. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [8:55:08]: Thank you so much, Dr. Hanan Mossie. They wrote, they sent me, I said, someone wrote to me this and said, please read it well, and I'm trying. I think it's the right, Deputy Executive Director, Secretary. We are so excited that you gave that background to MACRA, because that's what we intend really to look at. What are the risks, where can we invest in, given the vulnerability that we have as Africa, And given the immense wealth that we have in terms of natural capital, how can we leverage this? What models, the ecological models you've talked about, these are key things that we're looking at. And we would like to pattern, like you said, we come to you and we pattern together. Let's pattern together and make sure this is clear, understood, and informs our policies at any one point. And that's what the Coalition of Finance Ministers Climate Action stands for. We need to understand, we need to learn, we need to have tools and the resources to make us move on. I would like now to invite Pierre Totar, you will mention it right when you're here, head of 4P Secretariat to give us also remarks as we launch the MACRA for Africa. Thank you, you're welcome. 4P · Head of 4P Secretariat · Pierra Tota [8:56:33]: Colleagues, it's a real pleasure to be here with you today. Thank you so much to the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate. Thank you so much to ECA, so Anna Morsi, thank you so much for setting so well the scene and talking so eloquently about this new initiative that we're launching together. I'm here today to represent the C3A. The C3A is a coalition that has been launched two years ago at the summit for a new financing pact in Paris. And that is the forum that also launched the fourth piece of the pact for prosperity, people and the planet. And the C3A actually is born from a very, very deep, but also simple understanding, the understanding that climate risks and risks linked to natural degradation and biodiversity loss are increasingly having an impact on our economies, but there is still a huge divide between science on ecological matters, on climate, and how these are integrated into financial and economic policy. So the purpose of C3A is really to better integrate climate and environment consideration in the financial and microeconomic frameworks, and it does The coalition does so by providing technical assistance to countries, but also really creating a space for peer exchange and creating a space for a multi-stakeholder dialogue to co-create analytics with knowledge partners in support of financial ministers. The C3A is now operational in Latin America, in Africa, in Europe and Central Asia. And it is also a key source of knowledge to inform most of the regional dialogues of the Coalition of the Finance Ministers for Climate Action. So I'm really happy as the head of the 4P Secretariat, which has now grown as a coalition of 73 countries, to be here with you to launch this joint initiative. And I really believe that this initiative will really help us make strong advancements in how adaptation and resilience are incorporated in analytical frameworks in Africa and how adaptation and resilience policies can really help make a difference in the continent. And We also see a great value in this new initiative for reinforcing the institutional partnership with ECA and also with the coalition of the finance ministers. So once again, let me thank you, our partners. We're absolutely delighted. I'm absolutely delighted on behalf of the 4P and on behalf of the C3A team to be joining this initiative and to be working with you in the weeks and the months and perhaps years to come. Thank you so much. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [8:59:58]: Thank you so much, Betty. As a coalition, really, we're still looking ahead, one, to work with 4P, that's where you are, and also to work very closely, again, with C3A. We have partnered with C3A to do a number of things already, in terms of capacity building, in terms of models. The last forum that we had of models, tools in Paris was very great, organized by C3A, it's a global model forum. to look at the tools that we have at global level, but also to look at how some countries are using those tools, share experience with countries, policymakers, academia, and then we have the private sector. So these are things we are looking at ahead to partner with C3A. But more importantly with NACA and C3A is that, I'll speak for Africa now, and Uganda at some point, is that at African level, we are Again, speaking among ourselves, those countries want to form a platform for ministers of finance to engage in this discussion of how to have embed climate action in our models and in our public finance management. And the discussion out there, we've got a concept, we've got what we want. The next point is to call upon new partners and say, come, look, see, what can we do together? And we intend to launch also this platform at some point in November in Egypt, when we sit again as African countries to discuss as part of the coalition. So this is critical. And we're looking ahead to being with CCI, to being with UNECA supporting us, because we're speaking the same language. When it comes to the country, You know, this subject, when it comes to macroeconomics modeling and, you know, and now putting in this very, very challenging parameter, climate change, we need the academia. We are partnering with different universities and institutions of higher learning. We are promoting as Uganda Makerere University to be a center of excellence. The School of Economics under Professor Barley is doing a lot of work, and they're partnering with you, both UNECA and C3A. So we want to extend it to the rest of Africa. So partnership is critical, and having us launching this MACRA is very, very important today. I can speak a lot on that subject, but I want to hold a little. And probably by show of hands, if there are questions, if there are, if press or technical people asking questions, I'll just pick you and they'll bring a microphone. Myself, I'll walk that side. Please, it's time. You can ask me, you can ask, oh, you want to ask, okay. Uganda · Caroline Aguti [9:02:59]: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for this initiative. I'm Caroline Aguti, and I come from the ministry responsible for energy and extractives in Uganda. And I am responsible for environment and climate change, and this is really very exciting. But I see that the focus seems to be microeconomic modeling. So at the sector level, again, maybe that will come to some or anyone of you. Is there a possibility that we can ask for technical assistance at the level of the energy and extractive sector? Because again, we have developed our biodiversity action plan. And then we also have a draft climate change strategy. So we wanted to really align this at the sector level, given the important role that the energy and extractive sector plays. Thank you. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [9:04:09]: Okay. Thank you so much, Carol. Thank you so much, Carol, for that question. I think we'll note the questions. I'll take like three, then we will be able to answer. Another one? Okay, we shall be answering that one as another question comes. If it doesn't come, I will ask you. Okay. Anna, you want to give it a go? UNECA · Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist · Hanan Morsy [9:04:37]: Sure. Thank you for the question. I think part of this initiative is focusing on Ministry of Finance is for the reason that for long it has been kind of siloed. So you have issues that is well understood and pursued by ministries of environment, but we're not making the connect with the ministries of finance. And this is something that, you know, at UNECA, we realized that, you know, years ago when we actually did the first ever summit of African ministers ahead of COP27 in order to bring the issues to not just the segregation of ministries of environment and ministries of finance, but to ministry. So it was based really on an identified gap in the system that we don't have enough connect. and the tools that we're talking about this, and is how to systematically streamline and integrate. But I think what you raise is a very good point, which is, and it comes, it should come through the planning process. How do you make sure that what is streamlined takes into account the sectoral needs? Because in part, through ministries of planning or through ministries of finance, depending on the country, the sectoral needs and plans should be incorporated in what comes. And then it's about how do you feed it in your forecast, in your tracking, in your budgeting and finance. So I think perhaps this is something that can be looked into more, but definitely agree that this is we need a more holistic approach. But at least this one tackles an issue that has persisted for many years that we're we have silos between ministries on very critical issues that are particularly hitting the continent. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [9:06:59]: Thank you so much, Dr. Pierre. 4P · Head of 4P Secretariat · Pierra Tota [9:07:04]: Thank you so much for the question. No, I mean, I just wanted to echo what Anna said. And I think the whole purpose is also to really bring knowledge that is relevant to also the various policies, like you mentioned, the biodiversity policy that your country is developing, the climate change strategy. So it's about how instead of developing you know, different policies that don't speak to each other. At the end of the day, we can support through this initiative countries to have a more holistic approach that really integrates the different the different policies at the end of the day and then breaks the silos across. So. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [9:07:43]: Thank you so much. I will also add on and for me, I'll come from the the the kind of the user's perspective. Because when we talk about macroeconomic models, what are we looking at? It's looking at what are the channels, like the policies we have, like the strategies we have. If we implement these strategies, what happens to our macroeconomic objectives? These are the answers we get. So in other words, if you go back reverse, it's answering the question of sectors. If I'm going to put more money in energy, what is going to happen? Clean energy, what's going to happen in the short term and the long term? These are answers, and then the sectors will pick on that to be able to advocate for the right things to do in terms of green development. So speaking again to the sectors also. Thank you. UNESCO · Head of Partnership and Agenda Setting Unit · Boston Lily Liu [9:08:46]: Thank you so much. Hi, colleagues. Thank you so much for the very inspiring remarks that you have made. My name is Boston Lily Liu. I'm the head of partnership and agenda setting unit at UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education. So our mandate is strictly on higher education. And as you know, we have more than 254 million students worldwide, and they are the current and the future largest labor force that can potentially shape any economy that our world wants. So in this C3 that you're creating. I want to learn more, or let's say I'm very curious about how you envision youth participation and how you think the future ready skills should be, you know, applied for the younger generation to, you know, keep moving forward with the implementation. And at the same time, beyond, you know, just seeing how at very high level, how it's potentially going to benefit those young people who's coming up and going to be part of the economy. Do you see any room for, for example, co-implementation of certain policies or any grassroots initiative that can be led from the C3A policies? Thank you. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [9:10:01]: I go for it. Let me stand here, then I can read the title of what we are launching. What we are launching is macroeconomic action for climate resilience. Okay. Macroeconomic action for climate resilience in Africa. C3A is a partner in this. C3A has been existing and they are going to help us implement this. But your question is very relevant and I'll go to that question really. Some mugume is going away. and the people in employed in minister of finance in the modeling the units and the rest are going. So what is going to happen to the younger generation? Are we speaking to them? Is capacity building only for the officers in minister of finance at the moment? Yes, it's happening. We've we're encouraging economists and statisticians and you know, policy makers to understand this. But that's why I talked about institutions of higher learning like Mackerer University. We are partnering with those one be able to train the managers of tomorrow to know what they can do as far as, because we are not trained in this. When I was at school, they never trained me about climate change action, it models of economics, no. But Makerere University at the moment is starting a program for economic modeling, embedding climate parameters and environment within. And it's coming from the partners that are here from the demand that we see outside. So we're trying, but we need to do much better. Thank you. Yes, okay, okay, okay, it's okay. 4P · Head of 4P Secretariat · Pierra Tota [9:11:52]: Yes, and just to compliment, so indeed, C3A is a partner in this new initiative that we're launching today, but C3A works a lot with the knowledge partners, including universities, so I think that this is something that would also come into the mix in the macro initiative that we're launching today. I think that from this perspective, actually, there might be for sure opportunities also to be collaborating perhaps more with UNESCO in the future, given the role that you have on education and with universities. So just to say that, of course, I think the more synergies we can establish with this new initiative, the better. So thank you for your comments. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [9:12:33]: Thank you so much. UNECA · Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist · Hanan Morsy [9:12:36]: Thank you. Just wanted to highlight while this is focusing more on the macro and the macro modeling and obviously this need to integrate like, you know, training young, you know, economists and the civil servants in terms of, you know, retooling, you know, retooling them to take into account these issues. You know, the issues of green skills is something that, um, you know, uh, uh, personally passionate about, and it was one of the things that we, uh, have done actually, uh, um, a special high level event on during the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, so it's something that is very important, uh, to kind of, you know, rethink. the education, the skills going forward that would fit the type of development model that we inspire to. It's beyond, just to be fair, it's beyond the scope of this initiative, but it's a very important area that perhaps we need to partner along these lines. Thank you. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [9:13:44]: Thank you so much. Perry, in two words or three, how do you see Africa with MACRA? Just that, what do you expect, Africa Minister of Finance? 4P · Head of 4P Secretariat · Pierra Tota [9:13:55]: Well, I think this is a great opportunity to build even more momentum in the African continent on these issues. So I expect that this initiative will grow and perhaps the partners will also grow and that we can cover as many countries in Africa as possible. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [9:14:15]: Thank you so much, and the same question. UNECA · Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist · Hanan Morsy [9:14:19]: For me, I see it as African policymakers becoming less reactive, more proactive, and leading the process with the tools that this initiative can provide. Uganda · Moderator · Samu Gume Kojo [9:14:35]: Thank you so much. I want to thank you both as someone from Uganda, from Africa, that what we are doing really is important for us to understand what we should be doing as ministers of finance. And we will work closer with you and many others that side The time is finished. It's it's over. They they are putting the microphones are going to be over very soon. I thank you so much. We can discuss this one later. But I would like to thank you too for really the launch. And eventually I think doctor you said the it is now launched. Officially it is launched. That's what he said. Thank you. Head of Secretariat · Sebastien Vozel [9:28:02]: Hi, my name is. Yes, the two, especially the press. There are some people here, some women. Yeah. Sorry. So, good afternoon, good evening, bonsoir, buenas tardes, masarhir. We will start, if you agree. So, I'm Sebastien Vozel, I will be moderating the session. I'm the head of secretariat of the Local 2030 Coalition. And together with the OECD. the Global Task Force, the host country of this conference, Spain, and IFD, the Finance for Common Initiative. We will present to you today the Seville Platform for Action for localizing finance for the SDGs. And we have a solid and high-level lineup today. With Under-Secretary-General, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Ms. Anna Claudia Rosbach. With the Director of IESID, Anton, thank you for being here. With Mr. Remy Rioux, CEO of the Agence Francaise de Developement and Chairman of Finance for Common Initiative. With Fatimatu Abdelmalik, President of the Regional Council of Nouakchott, representing also the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Government, and with Julia Nilsson, Director for Development Cooperation in OECD. Thank you to all of you for being here. And without further ado, I will hand the floor to Anton for representing Spain, the host country, but also director of the Spanish Agency for Cooperation to introduce the CEVI Platform for Action. Over to you, Anton. Spain · Director · Anton [9:31:26]: Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you, everyone, for being here. It's incredible. I was speaking with Remy, the sense of energy that we have in Sevilla, that after so many hours of conversations, there is still so many people in rooms interested in localization, in how we move forward with the SDGs, also from the local side and to the local side. So, and it's great to be part of this panel with friends and partners, I would say, because Madam President is a big partner of IFED and I just learned also IFD in terms of the different projects that she's doing in the region of Nouakchott on sustainable food systems and actually climate adaptation, which are a biggest example of the things we do in Mauritania with local governments, not just with the national authorities. Also, multilateral partners like Ana Claudia and UN-Habitat, that is one of our closest partners at the multilateral UN system, the OECD as well, and RMI, with whom we work in the financing common initiative and as part of the European system and Team Europe. So Two ideas from me on the importance of going local, addressing the global challenges from the local level and to the local level. You are in a country, I'm not sure if with the heat you were able to explore Sevilla, but one of the things you will realize is that we have a very complex system of governance, municipalities, autonomous communities, our regions and so on. These are the people that are doing most public policies. It is actually where sometimes the knowledge is, often not always the finance. And I think in FFD4, that's one of the things is how we get the finance into the hands of the people that are closest to the citizens and therefore the ones that are closest to making an impact on the SDGs. So it is very important and I think this is a challenge for all of us. We are more in the business of working with governments or doing when it comes to lending, sovereign lending to countries. And it's much more difficult often to put the money in the hands of cities and regions that have this very valuable role. And I think that's really recognized in the Compromiso de Sevilla. Compromiso is a word in Spanish that has two meanings. the one is compromise and the other one is commitment. I think this is more on the commitment side. I don't think reading it is a pretty strong document. And like in any multilateral document, there is some compromises made, but there is a lot of commitment. And I think there is a clear commitment to the to localization. And what is behind the word localization that may sound a bit obscure, which is actually making sure that those closest to the citizens defining the policies, having the capacities and getting the finance to deliver for the SDGs. And I think, and I finish with this, that's what the SPI is about, is to make sure when it's great to have local 2030 coalition, we're very happy to have you in Bilbao. We're proud. And again, it's a symbol of how important we take this, how much we value this agenda. despite is about making some tangible progress already having some countries that are receiving the capacity support like the some countries or some regions, some cities and regions in some countries that are already getting ahead with making sure that they have the resources in terms of the policy frameworks, the capacities and of course the finance to make a difference for this. Head of Secretariat · Sebastien Vozel [9:35:12]: Muchas gracias, Anton. Thank you very much. He's director of the Spanish Agency for Cooperation for stressing the importance of going local when addressing global challenging, tailoring solutions to local contexts, the importance of multi-level governance. And here, indeed, Spain is leading by example, by showing how a complex governance system can also mean wealth in terms of possibilities to address sustainable development challenges. And you talked about the barriers to access also for local development stakeholders to access finance and how capacity support and other kind of specific actions in the SEBI platform for action can contribute to lower these barriers. So I would now give the floor to Ms. Anna-Claudia Rosbach, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat, to tell us further about the UN perspective on this SDG Platform for Action. UN-Habitat · Executive Director · Anna Claudia Rosbach [9:36:08]: Thank you so much, Sebastian. First of all, I would like to thank the Government of Spain for the leadership and support for this initiative, but also congratulate for the excellent event. which I have been experiencing, and my impressions are that we are here together in a very good spirit. And all the conversations, they have been very honest, transparent, and this is a very good way for us to go after Seville with this spirit, right, of we need to keep this consensus that we got, we need to keep this partnership, this coalition, and keep developing these ideas with the understanding that there is still a lot that we need to change, but we are on the path. And the illustrations that were shared here were critical. So this platform has two characteristics or features that I would like to highlight. And I think the first one is that it is a mechanism for coordination. So we have as partners, we have, um, it's, it's UN wide. So there are several UN agencies that are engaged, uh, in this coalition, in this platform, and this is critical nowadays. Uh, UN-Habitat, of course, uh, plays the role of supporting this coordination, offering our services, our urban perspective, our urban lens. But it is the UN system coming together at the local level. And this is very unique. This speaks to the context where we are living now that requires more efficiency, more coordination, and more impact. So this is one important aspect. And it's not a coordination mechanism for the UN alone, but it's also with development partners and key stakeholders. And we spoke a lot about division of labor here these days in the various sessions that I attended. The issue of looking at development and being more coordinated and more meaningful, you know, on how we go and where to go and with whom and have this division of labor is critical. The second aspect is the local aspect. And And, and this is important because if we look, uh, from a global perspective, which is mine right now, um, being the director of UN-Habitat, is that we have more than half of the population living in cities. Cities are responsible for 70% of the emissions, large part of, um, uh, consum- energy consumption. and the GDP, 80% of the GDP. So basically, cities is where people live, where we can find the means to address the issues of climate change, and where we can generate, actually, economic activities and economic growth and economic development. So the local enables us to agree on the what, Because we have been discussing development, right, uh, but we know that development cannot be disconnected from climate change, we can, we know that development cannot dis- be disconnected from, you know, the most urgent, um, social needs. And I believe there's a critical step for us in agreeing on what is the priority, what is the urgency, right? And being local enable us to see the most vulnerable territories, the women that are living in peripheric areas of the city that needs to be closer to opportunities, to services and so on, and address these emergencies and the needs and make sure that they are all seen, uh, and work on the social contract that can enables us, uh, enable us to work on a global social contract. And the second aspect of the relevance and, uh, of working locally is the multiplier effect. If we invest locally, uh, we have higher chances of, you know, multiplying the investments, generating local economic development through economic inclusion and empowering cities also to increase the revenue resources. So if we empower cities, local and regional governments now, for example, local stakeholders, they will be more capacitated to work around local revenues, to look around land-based for example, and this investment will have a broader revenue for the society and therefore for the city treasure, and they will be able to pay back if they need to pay back something else. But certainly there will be an effect that will impact the society, not only locally, but also the country's GDP and globally. So for me, these are the reasons, the people, the agreement and the multiplier effect that we can have at the local level. We are proud of being part of this coalition. I believe we achieved a point of, you know, we are there. And this conference and this discussion today gives us many insights and opportunities of partnerships for us to move to the next step. which is really making sure that the projects that have been supported by this coalition, they continue. There is finance available for the continuation of that because as we speak, projects are being implemented and we are having impact. And that also through a higher coordination of development, I say coders and the UN, we can have also more impact at the political level. So translate these experiences that we have been supporting into policy change. Thank you very much. Head of Secretariat · Sebastien Vozel [9:42:29]: Thank you very much, Ana Claudia. And just stressing the importance, as you said, of partnerships, coordination for division of labor, more efficiency and more impact ultimately on people's lives. If you will allow me a little breach to the protocol, I understand the president of the Regional Council of Nouakchott is is in difficulty because there's no translation in French. We hope there were. So do you allow me to give the floor to the... You can express yourself in French and I will try to translate in English. Is it okay? You can speak in French. Yes, I will translate. I will try to translate. Sorry. No, there's no problem. Mauritania · President of the Regional Council of Nouakchott · Fatimatu Abdelmalik [9:43:16]: This one? Thank you very much. First of all, I'm going to put on the black suit and I'm going to congratulate and thank the Spanish government. I'd like to congratulate the Spanish government for being the first country that has signed the convention with a group of citizens that without going through the central government. So that's very important. I want to thank you and Congratulate you. The Global Task Force. We would like to congratulate ourselves to see this initiative, an initiative that-- OK, fine. UN-Habitat is always helping us. So thank you, UN-Habitat. So we would like to express our congratulations to the Spanish government, UN-Habitat. And it's allowing us to, as a group of regional and local governments, to have, to be considered as a heart for the implementation of the SDGs. This is an initiative that is going to allow, at the same time, to create an environment which is conducive for the mobilization of resources and also to strengthen the capacity locally to promote transparency and to improve governance. Therefore, Through that we are involved because we are local and regional government, we are accompanying this initiative which we are using and it's allowing us as cities and territories to be able to be recognized as determining players in this dynamic. Therefore, we think that we, as local and regional governments, We are the legitimate representatives of the population, and we know their problems, their needs. And just to follow the needs of this population, we need to be accompanied. We need to have financing and partners adapted to the local needs so that we can implement the projects locally and regionally, because it is never enough. We have never have enough money, so the first level of response is what we are doing with this population. So if we are really aware that the development is done locally, so we need to find other things. And therefore, we have the need to have a reformulation of the model of financing at the local level so that it can push and so that it can implement projects locally. and so that it can arrive to most of the population who are, if I could say, grassroots, with the proximity of the citizens. So they are the first knock on door on which they knock. It is local authorities, so we certainly need to make sure the financing is channeled and reformulated so that financing is local for the local authorities and is the best opportunity to say that we need to benefit from the public support. But we can also push significantly in the preparation of the centralized cooperation because it will focus on the actions. So we have the need to do that and we need to have stable transfers to the local authorities that will give them the opportunity to undertake that mission, but above all, to affirm and stay locally at the level of our collectivity. I think I was not too long, and I think I am going to facilitate the translation. Head of Secretariat · Sebastien Vozel [9:47:58]: I I hope I will be able to read what I wrote. So first, we are putting on the Nouakchott cap as the president of the Regional Council of Nouakchott. Fatima Tou wants to thank Spain for being the first country to sign an agreement with a subnational government directly in Mauritania. Then, putting on the global task force of local and regional government cap, she wants to congratulate the initiative led by Spain, UN Habitat, as the secretariat of the Local 2030 Coalition and the OECD, putting local and regional governments and local development stakeholders at the heart of the realization of SDGs. and by doing so, being more inclusive in the approach of financing for development. By fostering enabling environments to mobilize resources for local impact and promoting transparency and multi-level governance, this initiative will empower local and regional governments. And so as such, the Global Task Force commits to support this initiative as a network of critical actors for sustainable development is the local actors. They are critical actors because they are the legitimate representative of the population. They know the needs and they need resources to respond to these needs. They are the first level of response. Development local is therefore first before anything else. And we need to change the financial model to respond to this and to enable local action based on proximity, agility and trust. But this finance, for finance to flow to local level, we need to acknowledge this and to adapt to these needs. And finally, the President stressed the role of decentralized cooperation is a key role in transferring knowledge and resources to foster the capacities and the enabling ecosystem to have a sustainability in the access of local finance. I hope I didn't misquote your words. Thank you, and apologizing again for the breach in protocol, I will now turn to Julia Nielsen, Director for Development Cooperation for OECD. Julia, the floor is yours. OECD · Director for Development Cooperation · Julia Nilsson [9:50:17]: Thank you very much, and look, it's a pleasure to be here and to be part of this initiative. The great thing about Cevier is that this is not just what we do now, it's about what we do next, and nothing shows that more than these Platform for Action events. So we're very proud to partner with Spain and also with Local 2030 on this initiative, but this is also a partnership also within the OECD. And so this is an initiative that is led by my colleagues in the Center for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities, and Nadi Mamed and his team are sitting in the front row. So we bring the... the CFE together with the Development Cooperation Director precisely because we recognize that subnational governments are key to the SDGs. They're key for three reasons. Firstly, as Anton mentioned, because they are the interface with citizens, they are the closest to actually affecting people's lives. Secondly, because actually they lead on a lot of the things that matter, whether it's transport, infrastructure and housing. And thirdly, that this is concrete in the sense that subnational are about 25% of public expenditure globally, and they're about 40% of public investment. So this is really, this is where the rubber hits the road. This is the coalface of the SDGs. But we do know that about 39% of regions and 11% of cities are not on track to achieve any of the end goals of the SDGs by 2030 and that in fact no region or city will achieve more than five. So this is partially a question of financing but it's also a question of tools, of skills, of partnership and of knowledge. And so this is why we think this initiative is so important is because we're not going to get to the SDGs without subnational governments and this Decentralised development cooperation is about empowering them. And it's about empowering, firstly, in terms of sharing knowledge with peers. And my colleagues in CFE know this better than we do, but there is nothing more powerful than talking and sharing experience with somebody who is facing the same challenges as you are and has come up with solutions from which you can learn. This is something where on the development cooperation side, we're looking to see how much more can be channelled through towards decentralised development cooperation. At this stage, it's about 3.5% of ODA. That's a sort of global average across the DAC, but we know it's much higher. So in Spain and in Czechia, it's around a quarter, so much bigger number. We suspect as well that those numbers are probably underestimates because only around half of the members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee actually report on the subnational finance. So this is something that we need to work on. It also, these numbers don't count in-kind contributions, and that's a really important part of the exchange of this cooperation as well. The other thing that we want to highlight is that one of the reasons that in the development finance community we look at this is because it works. And we recently did a report together with the European Commission called Harnessing City to City Partnerships to Finance Urban Development. And in part of that is a survey where 86% of the respondents said that actually decentralized development cooperation had helped them to mobilize financing through knowledge exchange, through knowledge exchange about financial management, about revenue, about tax collection. and revenue generation mechanisms. So there's a knowledge exchange actually results in tangible improvements. So what are we going to do under this? We, as what we're trying to bring to the table is firstly, a creation of a community of practice. So this is bringing together cities, regions, donors, and development banks to exchange practices to come up with this build on work that we have done with Germany to come up with ideas that reduce fragmentation. So what are we all doing together? How do we ensure that we reduce burdens by working in the same direction? Secondly, and in the same spirit, we're developing a guidance on decentralized development cooperation, and particularly on things like measuring impact and monitoring and evaluation, because as my neighbor pointed out, transparency and accountability are at the core of this. And the more that we can do these kinds of monitoring exercises in a common or a harmonized way, the easier it is for everybody to participate and do it. And thirdly, we're going to be working with partners to mobilize resources through this, including the International Development Financing Club. And this is about increasing capabilities, increasing capacities to be able to mobilize resources. So look, just to finish lastly. We're going to champion what we know works. And we know, firstly, what we know works is play to your strengths. And we have some very good examples of that, including in the Basque Country within Spain, focusing on gender. We have also a focus on get the frameworks right. So in France, we saw changes to laws which enabled cooperation between the city of Paris, also a sponsor for this initiative, and Phnom Penh. And lastly, get the data, get the monitoring. Hopefully this is where we can contribute as the OECD, because this allows you to know what's working and to build on that. So for us, that knowledge, that data, we hope we can empower people to go local for the SDGs in this area. Thank you very much. Head of Secretariat · Sebastien Vozel [9:56:10]: Thank you, Julia. So you talked about tools, keys, partnerships. important they are and how decentralized cooperation works and it's proven, how it mobilizes more finance. It's like a bit changing the dichotomy from finance for development and development for finance, developing the ecosystem that is needed for territories to access to finance. You also talked about data, very important, and of course about the specific action of the community of practice and the guidance on decentralized cooperation as a key contribution to the localization of finance. And I would now turn, after hearing from member states, from UN system, from OECD as intergovernmental organization, and from local and regional governments, it's much time to hear from financing institutions also, because they are the heart of this. And what is the perspective of the Finance for Common initiative on this, on this localization, unpacking a bit what it means for you and how we are supporting the SPA in this sense. Thank you, Remy. AFD · CEO · Remy Rioux [9:57:29]: Thank you. Let me start by sharing an experience. I remember a few years ago, I was in New York. That was UNGA. And I was on a panel like today about localization. And sometimes it happens on panels. I had absolutely no clue what we were talking about. So I think it's a bit better today. But you know, it was a very hot topic in the US, especially when Samantha Power And I'm here also to pay tribute to USAID colleagues. But when she took office, she said this target of, I think, 30, then 25% of USAID financing localized. And I remember I asked my team, but what's the figure for AFD? I'm supposed to head, so I should. should know the figure and they had no clue. And then we, of course, we dived into it and we understood that localization, if I'm right, means relying on the local actor, channeling resources through local actors and reaching communities, of course. And so It's a bit of a localization of the 2030 agenda. It's, let's say, or development and localization, it's a bit of a pleonasm, if I may. So that's maybe the reason why it was so obvious to me. And then, of course, the answer from my colleagues was, well, for AFD, it's about 100%. Or let's say, because, you know, we have a subsidiary called, uh, Expertise France, which is a, a sort of UNOPS, a French UNOPS, so sometimes you need a bit of a direct implementation, uh, when, I don't know, the country is in crisis or, uh, uh, there's nobody you can, uh, uh, transfer your resources. But the rest, and there's a very obvious reason, is EFD is a bank. We are a public development bank. So when you are a bank, you cannot say someone, okay, I will lend you money with an interest rate, even if it's very low, you will have to repay. And the second good news, I will manage it for you. I mean, it's just impossible. So when you are a bank, you trust. you discuss, it's a dialogue, can be very demanding, but in the end, you have to follow that path. I know localization is a way more deeper issue, and I'm a bit schematic to make my point clear, but just to share that this is the way we think. We even said in 2017, In our strategy at that time, we said non-sovereign first, so meaning, uh, I asked my team, if you can find another, uh, partner than the government, it's always better, not against the government, but because we know, uh, we have to strengthen, uh, other players, uh, in, uh, uh, in, uh, local fabrics. And now for EFD, we are at about, depending on the year, between 50% and 60% of our 14 billion euro financing that goes through other actors than the governments. So can be private sector, of course, can be state-owned enterprises, can be other public banks, can be municipalities and civil society, of course. And we try to do that systematically, of course, if the legal framework in the country allows it. And so, for instance, the EFD, I know what we did in Medellin, of course, in South Africa, we are lending money to municipalities without asking for the guarantee of the central government. And you know, there are many discussions these days about inventing guarantee mechanisms for municipalities to mobilize finance on the market where possible and to enhance the credit of these borrowers. In France, and we have tomorrow actually, it's a conference at the French Senate, we are also pushing hard for decentralized cooperation. Madame, we just discussed before the opening this partnership you have with the municipality of Paris, and Anne Hidalgo was explaining me a few days ago the importance for Paris of this partnership. It's really, it's about urban gardening, it's about biodiversity protection, it's about water management. It's a very important project that AFD is able to finance, I think, up to 80% if possible. Of course, embarking technical, the services of Paris, but also the political dimension between two mayors able to convince their citizens that international cooperation is important and provide impact. My second point is now with my finance in common hat, as you invited me to do it, is really to explain that it's also an obvious issue for national public development banks. I mean, because the national public development banks, they are not financing their government. They are financing the actors in their own constituency. And so the Finance in Common initiative we launched in 2020 that we are so proud is fully recognized and very, I think, important in the civil discussion. I refer to para 30 and 37, especially of the compromise, so nicely phrased. It's really the idea of connecting national public financial institutions with international ones. And this is something we know. I mean, Anton, he knows the role of ECO in Spain. In Nouakchott, you have a Caisse des Depots et Consignation, which is your domestic public financial institution. In France, we have the oldest one, Caisse des Depots et Consignation, born in 1816. which is financing our regions, cities forever, and doing what the market is not able for, mobilizing saving books from our people. And so Finance in Common is gathering all of them. It's 536. It's $2.5 trillion investments a year that we should guide, turn to, well, localization. And last, I think this discussion is important, and what I will, I'm leaving Seville tomorrow morning, what I will keep is, there were elements in Addis 10 years ago, but I think now, probably because ODA is vanishing, we are in really in times of a system change, parading shift. And hopefully the system will be turned upside down at a time. Well, the sooner the better. And rest on its feet, firmer feet, which would be local actors, local institution, of course, to support international action and multilateralism. But how could we think that ODA was the norm? and the rest of the financial system the exception, how could we think, I don't know, that international was not relying on national and local. So hopefully, I have a lot of optimism coming from Seville because this is what I heard in many side events, in the corridors, also a sense of urgency and the need to join forces because we know there's something that is somehow exhausting and that we have to rapidly reconfigure and reinvent. And thanks to OECD, UN-Habitat, I mean, Caisse des Depots was born to finance in France social housing, of course. It's a typical market failure and you need a public component in relation with the markets to do that. Thank you. Head of Secretariat · Sebastien Vozel [10:07:12]: Thank you very much, Remy. Thank you, thank you very much for bringing the perspective of public development banks and also financing comment, which is a network of all public, national public development banks. AFD · CEO · Remy Rioux [10:07:23]: Can I add? Head of Secretariat · Sebastien Vozel [10:07:24]: Yes. AFD · CEO · Remy Rioux [10:07:25]: No, I just wanted to, tell you, I'm like Angel Gurria in the past, I've always, I've always, I've always, I've always, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I've always, I've always, I've always, I There is a report to show. So now this one is a very good one, is the synthesis of all the work that has been done by academic about the role of this institution in public systems, in financial sector, and it's edited by Pearson now. I think it was presented in this very room, but I think it will hopefully help you think at that perimeter and move forward. Head of Secretariat · Sebastien Vozel [10:07:59]: Very good. Thank you very much. So you mentioned the importance, and not pretending to summarize, but to strengthen other players in the fabric. I think this is something fundamental. We often, there is often the chicken and the egg problem, capacities, finance, but without channeling more finance, you can never create the capacities to then for more finance to flow. You mentioned guarantees as an important aspect of channeling this finance. You mentioned example, including from South Africa and the municipality of Paris, which I think is in the room, the Deputy Mayor. Of them are part also of the of this SPA, so I just wanted to mention it, the credit worthiness of local actors and the importance of enhancing the possibility to access credit, and then to finish. the connection between national and global and maybe just giving the opportunity to stress that localization is not 100% local, it's articulating the different levels from local to global and back. And since you mentioned the system change and the need to put it upside down, indeed you were referring, I guess, implicitly to come from top down to bottom up. And this is all what the territorial approach is about and why empowering local actors is so important. So maybe just if you allow me three minutes to wrap up, Just to recall the 10 specific actions of this SPA, because they have been mentioned, but maybe just to have them fresh in mind when we all go back home, if I have them here, because I was supposed to, here they are, sorry. So the first one of the 10 is highlighting the role of local development finance in the global fora, connecting financing agenda to other agenda, including the social agenda, the upcoming World Social Summit and the COP30 and others. So connecting the different agendas at global level and mainstreaming finance and localization of finance as an enabler for all of them. Creating enabling environments for local finance, we have talked a lot about it in its different aspects. strengthening local institutional capacities to access finance, scaling up innovative financing, aligning financial planning with local planning for SDGs, including through integrated local financing frameworks, promoting transparency and accountability, integrated climate resilient infrastructure asset management into local development strategies, a very important also aspect of it, land asset management, Enhancing dialogue, we named it through a community of practice on decentralized development cooperation. Harmonizing standards through guidance for decentralized development cooperation. And finally, mobilizing resources for investments in sustainable cities through development coordination. So I will stop here. I will thank all the partners, all of you for being here and presenting the SPA. All of you in the room, many of you endorsing entities that will participate in moving forward in the implementation and ultimately accelerating FFD outcomes from the local level. Thank you very much and goodbye. Au revoir. Merci, désolé pour la traduction.