(4th meeting) 2026 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development Follow-Up (FfD Forum)

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, I call to order the fourth meeting of the 2020 sessions of the Economic and Social Council on financing for development follow-up. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, I now invite the forum to begin its considerations of the sub-item A of agenda item two. entitled Special High-Level Meeting with the Bretton Woods Institutions. The forum will begin by hearing opening remarks by intergovernmental representatives. I will first deliver my opening remarks as the President of the Economic and Social Council. Honorable Deputy Chair of the IMF-CEP, Executive Directors, Excellencies, I am delighted to welcome you to the 2026 EcoSoc Special High Level Meeting with the Bretton Woods institutions. As we have heard, the meeting takes place at a critical juncture for the global economy and for sustainable development. The conflict in the Middle East threatens to deliver significant new shock to the already fragile global economy. Financing conditions are deteriorating while donors are cutting their ODA budgets. We are already seeing a decline of more than 23% in total ODA in 2025. Progress towards the sustainable development goals remains off track. While countries continue to face a complex and interrelated set of challenges such as rising debt vulnerability, constant fiscal space, slowing growth, and increasing exposure to climate and other shocks, with developing countries facing a persistent SDG financing gap estimated around $4 trillion annually. The moment of crisis once again underlines the importance of implementing the Sanya commitment and its ambitious set of actions. In this context, the role of the international cooperation and strong multilateral institutions has never been more important. The Economic and Social Council occupies a unique position within the multilateral systems. It serves as a central platform to bring together the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions, fostering dialogue, fostering coherence, and fostering coordination across mandates. This convening role is essential to ensure that global economic and financial policies are aligned with the broader objectives of the sustainable development. Our discussion today build on the long standing partnership between ECOSOC and Bretton Woods institutions, as well as on the constructive exchanges held during the recent consultations in Washington, DC in February 19. They also build on ECOSOC continuing engagement with the Bretton Woods institutions through its annual special high level meetings the Financing for Development Forum, and regular analytical and policy dialogue, which together provide an institutional bridge between the United Nations and IFIs. These interactions have reaffirmed the importance of continued engagement, particularly at a time when coordinated responses are needed to address systemic risk and to accelerate progress towards our shared goals. The meeting also takes place in the context of renewed global efforts to strengthen financing for development and build resilience to shocks. The adoption of the Sabiya commitment at the fourth international conference on financing for development marked an important step forward in advancing a more inclusive, more resilient and more responsive international financial systems. ECOSOC has a key role to play in supporting the follow-up and the implementation of the actions identified in the SBI commitment. By providing an inclusive governmental platform, the Council helps ensure that perspectives and priorities of all the countries, especially developing countries, are reflected in global economic governance discussions. Today's dialogues offers an opportunity to further strengthen the complementarity between the United Nations and the BWIs. It allows us to take stock of the progress, to identify gaps, and to explore how our institutions can work together more effectively to advance the implementations of the severe commitment and financing for development agenda and to address debt challenges and to support investment for sustainable development. Excellencies, at a time of heightened uncertainty, we must reaffirm our shared commitment to multilateralisms and collective action. The challenges we face are interconnected. and so too must be our responses. I look forward to very constructive and forward-looking discussions. I thank you. I now invite His Excellency Riad Al Khareef, Deputy Chair of the International Monetary and Financial Committee at the International Monetary Fund to make a statement. Excellency, you have the floor.

Your Excellency, President of the Economic and Social Council, distinguished colleagues, it is my pleasure to address you today on behalf of His Excellency Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Saudi Arabia's Finance Minister and Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the IMF. As you know, The IMF C includes representatives of all 191 countries that are members of the IMF. Last year, I stood before you here in the UN headquarters, and I announced that the IMF C members agreed on the declaration on IMF quota and governance reforms. The declaration represented a shared vision to further advance IMF governance reforms, by the spring of 2026. To this end, I'm pleased to inform you that last Friday, the IMF unanimously endorsed the DRR guidance principles, which will support the fund's mission to promote monetary cooperation while helping protect the quotas and voting shares of low income countries. Today, my remarks will focus on the global economic outlook and key policy priorities agreed by IMF members. I will also talk about the role of the IMF in supporting the membership through its core functions. And then I will conclude my remarks with some key highlights about the Diriyah Guiding Principles. While the global economy has shown resilience in recent years amid repeated shocks and high uncertainty, the current conflict in the Middle East represent a major new global shock. Beyond its heavy humanitarian toll, the economic impact is global and highly asymmetric, hitting the poorest and most vulnerable countries the hardest. There have been notable efforts to sustain the flow of energy, including through the redirection of transport routes to enhance supply security. However, A prolonged conflict would pose further downside risks to growth, inflation, and financial stability. The new shocks come at a time when policy space has been eroded by years of successive crises. Growth remains weak, debt levels are very high, and policy uncertainty is elevated. Profound structural transformations, including advances in AI and demographic dividend, has reshaped our economies, creating risks but also major opportunities, especially for low-income countries where demographic dividend is favorably in the tilted towards low-income countries. So our policy priorities are very simple. First and foremost, IMF members agreed that timely, credible, and well-coordinated policies are essential to navigate the current shock. Central banks remain committed to acting decisively in line with their respective mandates to preserve price and financial stability. They have to continue their transparent communication and strong central bank independence, which is very important during uncertain times. Fiscal policies must remain well calibrated and anchored incredible medium term frameworks to ensure debt sustainability and rebuild buffers where needed. Temporary and targeted measures can help protect the most vulnerable segments of our households. The IMF will continue to monitor and address financial vulnerabilities and risks to financial stability while harnessing the benefit of financial and technological innovation. We will also work together to address excessive global imbalances through country-specific reforms and strong multilateral cooperation in support of a fair and open global system. Finally, we remain committed to supporting low-income countries, especially fragile and conflict-affected states, whom are facing a compounding crisis, including rising debt and financing needs given the difficult situation. This commitment includes improving debt restructuring process under the common framework, enhancing debt transparency, and advancing the implementation of the IMF World Bank three pillar approach. Delivering on these priorities underscores the importance of a strong, agile, and fit-for-purpose IMF. On surveillance, which is a core function of the IMF, we look forward to finalization of the comprehensive surveillance review to set future surveillance priorities, as well as the review of financial sector assessment program to strengthen macro financial surveillance in focused, risk-based, and cost-effective manner. We support ongoing efforts to fortify the Fund's lending framework, including finalizing the review of program design and conditionality, which is very important for low-income countries. And we are advancing our work on monetary policy frameworks for crisis and near-crisis countries. Our priority is further improving IMF capacity development, which is very important for a lot of low-income countries. And we also will ensure sustainable donor financing to provide much needed capacity development for our membership. On IMF governance, as I mentioned, the Diriyah principles represent historic reforms. This is the first reforms in over 15 years, which aim to advance transparency and fairness. On behalf of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's IMF C chairmanship, I would like to sincerely thank all IMF members, the executive board of the IMF, the IMF managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, as well as management and staff of the IMF. The Dairia principles are an agreed framework for future quota and governance reforms, including under the 17th quota review. Importantly, The DRII principles protect quota shares of the poorest members, as well as their voice and representation at both the IMF Executive Board and in the IMF C, which is very important. The principles also emphasize the importance of ensuring regional balance at both the IMF Executive Board and the IMF C. The DRII principles emphasized a pragmatic, gradual, transparent, and inclusive approach to reform. firmly anchored in the IMF governing bodies. Together, they will help the IMF to remain at the center of the global financial safety net. Finally, the Derya principles say that the selection process of the MD of the IMF should uphold an open, inclusive, merit-based, and transparent procedure. These pragmatic reforms will help ensure fair representation of all members, improve the readiness and relevance of the IMF and will bolster multilateralism. With that, I stop here. Thank you, everyone.

I thank the Deputy Chair of the International Monetary and Financial Committee for his statement. The forum will now hear a video statement from Her Excellency Elizabeth Spantesson, Chair of the Development Committee. Please play a video.

Hello from Washington. I want to share a few takeaways from the meetings here this week. There's no doubt that we are living in difficult times. In many meetings, the conflict in the Middle East has come up. All of us are facing difficulties, but the impact are uneven. Developing countries are hit the hardest. And in times like this, working together, cooperation must continue. But all of us also need to do what we can do at home. We need to strong and shockproof our economies. At the meeting, countries gave strong support for the World Bank and the IMF. They welcomed efforts to help countries handle the situation, and they also welcomed recent reforms to make the Bank more effective and focused. They called for continued efforts. One important topic this week and this day, we talked about jobs. The second pillar of the Bank's jobs strategy is about creating the enabling environment for more and better jobs. And on this topic, countries talked about what they think is most important. They highlighted macroeconomic and fiscal stability, effective regulations, rule of law, strong institutions. And we also talked about removing barriers to jobs for women and young people. In these times of repeated shocks, countries also highlighted the need for crisis response. They supported the Bank's effort to assist communities affected by conflict and violence. And countries also expressed a need to remain focused on long-term development objectives, including by investing in the health and climate. It is clear that we need to work together. Countries, international organizations, the private sector. The strong support for the Bank's work to achieve its 2030 targets was also very clear. The targets include improving electricity access through Mission 300, and moving farmers up from the value chain through Agroconnect and delivering safe water and irrigation through Water Forward. Countries also reinforce their support for IDA, the fund for the poorest countries. Thank you, and I wish you all productive discussions today.

I thank the Chair of the Development Committee. Excellencies, we will now take a brief pause to rearrange the podium before we begin the moderated interactive dialogues. Please remain seated. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, the forum will now hold three consecutive moderated interactive dialogues with the participations of the executive directors of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, the ECOSOC Bureau and member states. We'll begin with the topic of the IMF and the World Bank Group contributions to the SBI commitment and FFD agenda. I'm pleased to welcome the distinguished panelists for the discussion. I'll now deliver my opening remarks. Excellencies, this is special high level meeting with the Britain institutions could not come at a more important moment. Not only are we gathering one year after the adoptions of the severe commitment, an agreement that confirm and further strengthen the mandate of close cooperation between the United Nations and the BWIs on the financing for development agenda. We are also meeting at a moment of crisis for development financing with the war in the Middle East delivering a major shock to an already major fragile global economy and causing a further deterioration of the global financial condition, financing conditions. This challenging global context is hindering progress towards sustainable development and its increasing uncertainty and fragmentations. Developing countries are facing a devastating financing squeeze, a squeeze that undermines their ability to invest in their own development. Tax revenues remain low, FDI is declining, ODA has plummeted in historically unprecedented ways. At the same time, debt service burdens are at 20-year high iron borrowing costs could rise further as the conflict in the Middle East puts pressures on prices and interest rates. The international community must help countries and people living in those countries who are impacted by the global challenges, not of their own making. International financial institutions are at heart of the solutions. The SABIYAH commitment reflects the strong political support from member states for these institutions. It demonstrates the value that member states place on the role of the IMF and World Bank in supporting the achievements of the sustainable development outcomes across the globe. The SABIYAH commitment also outlines an ambitious vision to ensure that this role is fulfilled with maximum impact for people and for the planet. Developing countries need predictable, adequate and uninterrupted funding accompanied by support that can strengthen our ability to lead our own development journeys and increase our resilience to ever-increasing shocks. Developing countries need access to financing that is affordable and long-term financing that does not impose choices between servicing debt and paying for basic social protection and services for their people. Developing countries need voice and representation in global economy governance without increasing our seats at the table. The solutions will never be the transformations we need. So, we have given us a blueprint to advance in all these areas. Now we need to deliver. Almost a year after the adoption of the SBI commitment, progress seems almost unattainable. But several initiatives, including many loans under the SBI platform for action, are demonstrating that progress remains possible, even in today's context. For example, the global hub on debt for development swaps has been operationalized with a one-stop knowledge base and a database for active debt swaps. The global accelerator on jobs and social protection for just transition is supporting countries to strengthen financing for development and social protection through policy reforms, investment preparations and institutional coordination, including more engagement with IFIs and public development banks. I want to thank the World Bank and IMF for supporting and actively engaging in the financing for development agenda. Collaborations at all levels, national, regional, global, between IFIs and the United Nations remains critical to achieve results and deliver on our shared goals. Let us use this space to continue to strengthen such collaborations to maximize the impact of our respective contributions and of our joint work. The multilateral systems depends on strong coherent engagement among our international organizations. I thank you. I now give the floor to Ms. Vedapoon, Chair of the IMF Liaison Committee. Ms. **** you have the floor now.

Thank you, Your Excellency Ambassador Thapa. And I, together with my IMF board colleagues and staff, are very pleased to attend this forum, even if the economic backdrop to our meeting continues to be grave and concerning. This engagement follows on from ECOSOC's productive visit to Washington, DC in February, where we had an excellent dialogue on areas of funds work relevant to the outcome of the Seville conference. and where we also discussed the importance of more regular consultations. I'm also very pleased to see CSO representatives present today, some of whom I met during the IMF World Bank Spring Meetings last week. And of course, I would be happy to exchange further on IMF issues at any time. The IMF also has a senior representative in New York who is always happy to engage to explain the work and policies of the fund. Let me open by saying that the global economy has been tested once again. this time through the war in the Middle East. The situation is inflicting significant human and social cost, and all our thoughts are with those affected. The economic effect of the war is global, and the severity of impacts will depend on the war's duration, intensity and spread. And once again, it is the poorest and most vulnerable who will be hit the hardest. This was overwhelmingly the focus of the spring meetings last week. The IMF is closely monitoring and assessing developments at the country, regional, and global level, and in daily contact with program and non-program countries to see how we can best support them through advice, financial support where needed, and capacity development. Let me be very clear today that the IMF stands ready to act decisively and deploy all its tools to assist the membership. And to ensure that the IMF acts in concert with other parts of the international system, The managing director of the IMF has activated a coordination group, including the World Bank and the International Energy Agency, to align analysis and coordinate support, and has also engaged with the Rome agencies on food security issues. I can also say that the IMF board had a timely discussion with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in mid-March. But as one responds to the current crisis, one must also not lose sight of medium-term priorities. This was the IMF's message to its members. many of whom are implementing serious domestic structural reforms to boost growth and productivity, which in turn will make them more resilient to future shocks. And this ethos is also central to the IMF's contribution to the Cevia conference outcomes through pragmatic and results-oriented actions that recognize importance of fostering macroeconomic stability as a foundation for sustainable development. Let me highlight a few areas where progress is being made, and I'm happy to pick up more specifics over the course of this afternoon. Firstly, to ensure that the continued strength of the global financial safety net, the IMF is taking steps to fortify its lending toolkit, including through the ongoing review of program design and conditionality, to look at what has worked well in programs, less well, and to develop proposals that would enhance program effectiveness in an environment of greater uncertainty, more shocks, and less policy space. Closely related to this, the IMF is upgrading the way we monitor individual economies, regions, and the global economy, and ensure we can provide tailored and actionable policy advice to our members, with an emphasis on early risk identification, system-wide surveillance, and ensuring vulnerabilities are addressed early. We are also working towards the implementation of the 50% quota increase agreed under the 16th General Review of Quotas. to monitor our income and resource adequacy and ensure that members pledge subsidy resources to keep the PRDT, which is our concessional financing arm, self-sustaining. And of course, we continue to lend under the Resilience and Sustainability Trust, with recent programme approvals helping countries to strengthen fiscal resilience to shocks and to integrate climate considerations into public financial management. Secondly, the IMF continues to play a leading role together with the World Bank to support countries in tackling debt vulnerabilities and pressures. We will of course come back to this topic in the next session, but I should mention that the review of the joint IMF World Bank debt sustainability framework for low-income countries is well underway to improve assessment and monitoring of debt vulnerabilities and to inform borrowing and lending decisions. The Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable, which met last week, is highly active and produces regular public updates on its work to benefit borrowers and creditors alike, both in the public sector and the private sector. In particular, it is making further progress to improve restructuring processes, including under the Common Framework, and supporting the implementation of the three-pillar approach by reform-oriented countries through domestic resource mobilization, crowding in further international support, and reducing debt service burdens. Thirdly, I know that the Sevill commitment strongly encourages more engagement by the IMF on digital finance issues. And I can assure you that we are stepping up our work program both to better analyze and understand specific assets like cryptocurrency and stable coins, but also tackling the much more structural policy question of how these transformations and innovations in the financial sector can affect the international monetary system as a whole and affect capital flow volatility, monetary policy sovereignty, financial stability and many other important questions. And in doing this work, the IMF is coordinating very closely with the Financial Stability Board and the Bank of International Settlements and ensuring that the perspectives of both issuers and users, especially emerging markets and developing countries, are properly taken into account. Finally, on governance, as the IMF C Chair Deputy, His Excellency Dr. Riad Al Kharij mentioned, IMF C governors unanimously endorsed the DRIA principles for quota and governance reforms last week. The significance of this achievement is not to be underestimated, especially against the backdrop of our current rather fraught international environment, and represent reforms to the Fund's governance agenda for the first time in 15 years. The principles will serve as a guide for future discussions on quota and governance reform, including under the 17th General Review of Quotas, and drive further transparency and fairness in the process of negotiating countries' contributions. Crucially, among other things, the document enshrines the principle that voice and representation entails both rights and responsibilities, and notes that adjustments to quota shares should better reflect members' relative positions in the global economy, which should help reduce representation gaps whilst protecting the shares of the poorest members. Let me just close by saying that the IMF ended the spring meetings last week by resuming dealings with Venezuela after a hiatus of seven years. showing that our determination to bring the membership together is stronger than ever. Back to you, Ambassador.

I thank the Chair of the IMF Liaison Committee for her statement. I now invite Mr. Mateu Buhagali, Dean of the Board of Directors of the World Bank Group, to make a statement. And you have the floor now.

Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador Tappa. Esteemed guests, ministers, authorities, good afternoon. On behalf of my board colleagues, many present here, let me say that we are honored and glad to address this audience on the Seville Commitment and FFD agenda. Let me also thank Maria Dimi Triadafilou, the World Bank Group representative in New York, and Ambassador Tappa for his leadership and hospitality, and all ECOSOC members too for the continued engagement with our board and all of you being here today. Uh, the Seville commitment provides a robust framework to strengthen our collaboration with UN agencies at a time when we must increase our joint efforts to overcome duplication and fragmentation, focus on results relevant for our clients and use resources more efficiently. Today's forum not only allows our respective organization to continue deepening our ongoing collaboration on the FFD agenda, but also represent an important opportunity to engage with external stakeholders. This is extremely relevant for us as we try to restructure our organization, our operational toolkit, our risk management, and our analytical products to better meet the needs of our clients and implement our mission and the SDGs. Through its financing support and knowledge, the World Bank Group stands ready to contribute to the areas that the Seville Commitment selected as 2026 and 2027 priorities for an in-depth review. In the next session today, my board colleagues will offer our perspective on specific programs and concrete example related to debt, jobs, and investment. Here, I would like to focus my remarks on three topics from last week, 2026 Spring Meetings. The first concerns our renewed emphasis on measurable targets to inform our dialogue with governments, coordinate with development partners, monitor program implementation, adapt operation to different contexts, and track progress transparently. We launched a new interactive data dashboard that allows users to measure the pace of achievement of our joint development objectives, not only in the job space, but also more in general, in terms of access to healthcare, water, energy, digital services, social protection. Second, to help the UN member states implement the Seville commitment to catalyzing sustainable investment at scale, the World Bank Group is developing an integrated series of sector strategies, which are thoroughly discussed with the board and will be systematically implemented at the country level, with efforts across the public and private arms of our organization following the so-called One World Bank Group approach, and in partnership with other development actors. At the spring meetings, we saw the launch of the Water Forward Initiative with the participation of 14 signatories to national compacts. These national compacts, they are sectoral platforms that allow the planning and sifting deployment of the entire institution-wide toolkit, guarantees, blended finance, local currency solution, capital market development, and IDA concessional financing. Finally, my third point, our work on the shareholding review. The 2025 shareholding review has reaffirmed the importance and relevance of the Lima Principles endorsed by the governors at the 2015 annual meetings. The 2025 review has been conducted in a structured, inclusive, and transparent manner. Since the beginning, the executive directors of the board of the World Bank have emphasized open dialogue, consensus building, and the importance of finding agreement whenever possible. We have worked on two complementary tracks, the proper shareholding and voice. On the former, there are divergent views on whether to realign shareholding and voting power. After careful review of the option, it was clear that there is not sufficient support for issuing new shares through a selected capital increase. Nor is there sufficient support to increase basic votes, which requires an amendment of the article with support of 85% of the voting power. On the voice track, instead, there is a strong appetite to discuss innovative measure that were very appreciated by low income middle countries. We indeed agreed on the development and implementation of a reach package of proposals for enhancing client voice in our institution. With my colleagues, I remain available to answer to your question. Thank you, and back to you.

I thank the Dean of the Board of the Directors, World Bank Group. I now invite Her Excellency Eva Granados Galliano, the State Secretary for International Cooperation of Spain. Excellency, you have the floor.

Mr. President, Excellencies, esteemed colleagues, good afternoon to all in this second afternoon of the Forum on Financing for Development. And allow me to begin by thanking you for organizing this high-level dialogue that reflects the importance of strengthening cooperation between the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions at a key time for the agenda of financing for development. as a representative of the host country of that fourth FFD that was held in Seville just a few months ago. And let's say it again this afternoon. the international community took a huge leap forward. The Seville commitment approved by consensus did not just reaffirm the relevance of multilateralism. It also showed that it is possible to move forward and achieve ambitious agreements that are results oriented in a complex global context. That was true in June and that is still true today. Now we should focus on implementation for Spain 2026 should should be the year where we kick off the effective implementation of the commitments that we agreed upon. And in those efforts, the role of the IMF and the World Bank is absolutely critical. I would like to structure my statement around three priorities. First, debt. Seville, helped us to speak about debt sustainability and fiscal space and put it at the very center of the agenda of financing for development with specific advances in terms of prevention, reducing cost for financing, improving debt architecture and strengthening our analysis in terms of sustainability. Spain firmly supports the launch of the working group on loans and sovereign, responsible sovereign debt, which is anchored in the United Nations with the participation of the IMF and the World Bank. This initiative offers an opportunity to move towards shared principles, but also for practical tools that will facilitate its application. Moreover, we consider that it is essential to strengthen the dialogue on the issue of debt in the United Nations with the participation of Bretton Woods institutions, ensuring that this dialogue is inclusive, solutions-oriented, and that it complements existing mechanisms. Spain also deems that the platform for debtors is extremely important. This platform is supported by UNCTAD. It can contribute to reinforcing technical capacities and the collective voice of debtor countries. In parallel, we are committed to specific initiatives in the framework of the Seville Platform for Action. Alongside the World Bank, we are supporting the Global Center for Debt Swaps with initial financing from Spain and as a platform to exchange knowledge and tools in order to support the use of debt swaps as an instrument to create fiscal space and move forward in terms of the SDGs. We are also co-leading the Alliance for Debt Suspension Clauses, which is moving towards normalizing and standardizing the use of clauses to suspend debt in loan contracts according to certain circumstances. And this includes participation from the private sector. And along with the United Nations, we are promoting the Civil Forum on Debt as an inclusive space for a technical and political dialogue among debtors, debt providers, and international institutions this very morning in this room, in this table, my colleague from the Ministry of Economics was speaking about that initiative. And as I said, there were three issues that I wanted to speak to. Second, the network of global financial security. Saville reform the importance of an IMF that is adequately resourced and we support efforts to continue improving its financing instruments and preserve the concessional character of key mechanisms such as the fund to reduce poverty and growth, but also its role in terms of strengthening capacities in order to have solid public institutions, and I heard that this was mentioned just a moment ago. We also consider that it is timely to reflect upon the role of special drawing rights, which was also part of the conversations prior to Seville, and in fact, the Seville commitment includes the idea of developing an SDR playbook that can help us with guidance in crisis situations, and we believe that this could be a useful instrument to improve the international systems capacity to respond to shocks. And last, this is my third point, to operationalize CIBIL in the framework of the World Bank Group. And here I would like to highlight eight priorities relating to the World Bank's role in the implementation of the CIBIL commitment. First, we invite the World Bank Group to reinforce financing solutions that are provided in local currency to improve the conditions for loans and to consider internal incentives that prioritize long-term impact and financial sustainability. Second, in relation to national platforms, the new commitment model of the World Bank should ensure a clear governance that is fully aligned with national strategies, ensuring thus that these platforms are truly country-led. And third, we also invite the World Bank to deepen cooperation with public development banks and national systems through co-financing. the spreading of risk and technical assistance to broaden the reach and sustainability of financing. And fourth, to mobilize private capital, something that is also critical and has come up time and time again in all our conversations here in New York. It's important to continue moving towards results and impact. results and impact. This is absolutely essential and we need adequate incentives and metrics that better reflect the real impacts of development. Fifth, we underline the importance of financing for development contributing to creating quality jobs. This has also been mentioned before with sustainable and dignified working conditions and of course with a gender perspective. Sixth, we consider that it is essential to fully integrate climate action into financing for development, strengthening resiliency, and addressing inequalities that are caused by climate change. Seven, we invite the World Bank to continue advancing in its coordination efforts with other MDBs promoting harmonized approaches that improve effectiveness and reduce fragmentation. And last, we would like to highlight once again the importance of strengthening collaboration between the World Bank and the United Nations system at a global as well as country level, and we should make the most of their respective comparative advantages. Mr. President, I would like to conclude with a few final thoughts. Implementing the Seville commitment requires a collaboration that is even closer between the UN, the IMF and the World Bank, not just at a technical level, but also at a political level and in decision-making organs. We should avoid fragmentation and move towards greater coherence, strengthening the links between finance ministries and foreign relations. Seville was not the end point of our negotiations, but rather the beginning of a demanding implementation and accountability phase. And we should live up to the commitments that we assumed and translate them into concrete actions and measurable results. Spain will continue to work constructively with all of you to move towards an international financial system that is more resilient, inclusive, and aligned with the SDGs. I thank you.

I thank the State Secretary for International Cooperation of Spain for her statement. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, I now open the floor for the interactive discussions. Delegation wishing to intervene are invited to request the floor by pressing the microphone button. I would like to remind speakers that in order to give as many speakers as possible, though we don't have much time, the opportunity to take the floor, time limit two minutes for individual interventions and three minutes for statements on behalf of the group will apply. To ensure proper interpretations, delegations are asked to speak at a normal pace and to provide a written copy of their statements by email to statement@un.org. Please Note that given the limited time available, the microphone will be automatically cut off when the allotted time has elapsed. This is in the interest of hearing all the inscribed speakers. With that, I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of Uruguay speaking on behalf of the G77 and China.

Mr. President, I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China. We meet at a time of multiple overlapping crises that are threatening sustainable development across all dimensions. For the countries of the global south, durable, homegrown solutions are essential, but they must be complemented by stronger international cooperation and support. We call for the timely and effective implementation of the Sevilla commitment adopted in 2025 at the fourth International Conference for Financing for Development, which we perceive as critical, which is critical for the realization of 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the SDGs and their targets. That conference was an important step for the global south toward reinvigorating the global partnership for development. The Seville commitment is a balanced, constructive and forward looking framework that reflects the collective aspiration to scale up efforts in mobilizing financing for sustainable development, particularly for developing countries. This is resources that, that is resources both domestic. domestic and international and from the different actors, having in mind the context of unmet official development assistance commitments and other intergovernmentally agreed commitments and obligations to developing countries, as well as the challenges posed by unilateral coercive measures that hamper the ability of the countries of the global south to achieve sustainable development. We reaffirm the urgent need for the reform of the international financial architecture, including international financial institutions and the multilateral development banks, governance reform, especially of the IMF and the World Bank, to broaden and strengthen the voice and participation and representation of developing countries in international economic decision-making, norm setting, and global economic governance. The reform also implies an improved global sovereign debt architecture with a meaningful participation of developing countries, urgent rechanneling of unutilized special drawing rights to developing countries, and a new allocation of special drawing rights, inclusive and effective platforms to design and discuss international tax rules, and at the UN, such as the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, as well as urgent and sizable recapitalization of the multilateral development banks to meet the significant financial needs of developing countries and rationalizing the role of the credit rating agencies. I thank you.

I thank Uruguay. And now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Nepal speaking on behalf of the least developed countries, to be followed by China, Canada, Cuba, and Norway.

Mr. President, the Nepal Alliance itself with this statement just delivered by Uruguay on behalf of G77 China. I have the honor to deliver the following remarks on behalf of the least developed countries. We welcome this special high-level engagement with the Bretton Woods Institution at a moment of heightened global uncertainty. The group wishes to underline four key issues. First, on debt and debt sustainability. The group reiterates the urgency for timely, comprehensive and predictable debt restructuring with full participation of all public and private creditors. Urgent reform of the common framework to ensure faster, transparent processes, automatic standstills and outcomes that restore debt sustainability and development. Scaled up innovative instruments to break recurrent debt distress cycles. Second, on investment, the group Urge the Bretton Woods institutions to sustainably scale up concessional and long maturity financing, particularly through IDA and other dedicated windows for LDCs. Support investment in productive capacities, infrastructure, industrialization, and digital transformation aligned with national development strategies. Act decisively to reduce the cost of capital for LDCs, including through guarantees, de-risking instruments, and additional blended finance to deliver real development impact. Third, on global economic governance, the group calls for accelerated reforms of IMF and World Bank governance, including quota and shareholding reforms that meaningfully enhance LDC voice and participation, greater policy space for LDCs, recognizing diverse development pathways and the need for counter-cyclical responses, stronger coherence between the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions with full respect for the UN's development mandate, Fourth, on global financial safety net and SDRs, the group calls for a new allocation of special drawing rights commensurate with global needs, expanded and more accessible SDR channeling, including through multilateral development banks without adding to debt burdens or policy conditionalities, enhanced access to emergency and precautionary financing with greater concessionality and simplified procedures for the most vulnerable countries. To conclude, we urge the Bretton Woods Institution to translate commitments into decisive, time-bound and measurable actions aligned with the Doha Programme of Action, the CBI commitment and the 2030 Agenda. As many LDCs approach graduation, continued and targeted support will be essential to ensure sustainable and irreversible graduation. The LDC Group stands ready to engage constructively with all partners. I thank you.

I thank Nepal for this statement. I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of China.

China aligns itself with the statement by G77 and China. To implement the Seville commitment, I wish to make three points. First, accelerate reform of the international financial governance architecture. We need to follow the agreed timeframe and roadmap in advancing the realignment of IMF quota shares and conducting the World Bank shareholding review, so as to enhance the representation and voice of developing countries and improve the institutions' operational efficiency and financing capacity. Second, strengthen the functions of economic and financial surveillance. International financial institutions should build stabilizers for macroeconomic policy coordination, step up policy dialogue with member states, and promote diverse and efficient global financial safety nets. We need to support AIIB and the New Development Bank in playing greater roles and jointly safeguard global financial stability. Third, we need to strengthen coordination with the UNDS. Focus should be given to key areas such as poverty reduction, food security, infrastructure, and digital economy to provide developing countries with more long-term and concessional financing and to help vulnerable countries better address debt and liquidity challenges. China looks forward to stepping up cooperation with all parties to build a more efficient and robust FFDE system, promote more just, equitable, universally beneficial and inclusive global economic governance system, and advance the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. I wish to ask a question. According to the 2026 FFDE report, reform of the international financial architecture has long been lagging, and over the past decade, the voting rights of developing countries have seen no significant change. What next steps are needed to resolve this? Thank you.

I thank the representative of China. And now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Canada.

Thank you, Mr. President. Canada welcomes this dedicated high-level exchange with the IMF and the World Bank Group. As you know, Canada served as the president of ICOSOC last year, and we were proud to work to strengthen this important institutional link. This meeting provides a valuable space to build trust, to align expectations, and to reinforce the complementarity between the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions. And the Sevilla commitment offers important political momentum and an inclusive international framework for advancing sustainable development financing. At the same time, the IMF and the World Bank play a central role as core technical actors. through surveillance, financing, debt sustainability analysis, capacity development, and investment mobilization. Canada strongly supports efforts to ensure that implementation of Seville builds on existing IFI tools, avoids duplication, and remains focused on practical solutions that deliver results. In this regard, we welcome the IMF World Bank three pillar approach to liquidity challenges, the ongoing work of the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable and progress on the review of the Low Income Country Debt Sustainability Framework. We encourage continued and deepened engagement between IMF and World Bank Group boards, ECOSOC, and permanent missions. Clear communication on mandates, constraints, and comparative advantage is key to fostering realistic expectations and better outcomes. In this respect, we would have one question for the discussion. Looking to the next phase of the financing for development process, where do you see the greatest opportunity for deeper UN-IFI collaboration to make the global financing architecture more responsive

effective.

I thank you.

Thank you. Now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Cuba.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for giving me the floor. Our delegation aligns with the statement made by the delegation of Uruguay on behalf of the G77 and China and would like to add additional comments in our national capacity. We have some questions for the distinguished panelists and if possible, we would appreciate your feedback. Yesterday, we asked what initiatives were currently unfolding or currently being discussed in the context of IFIs in order to support the recovery of small island developing states after natural disasters. This is an issue perhaps due to a lack of time, I was not able to hear any feedback on the issue. And if it's possible, I would love for this to be addressed because it's a concerning phenomenon. Every year, small island developing states experience this kind of natural catastrophe. Second, we would also like to know whether there are discussions or proposals on the table so that IFIs could help to capitalize different UN funds that carry out operational activities on the ground. We all know that the UN is facing a financial crisis, not just the secretariat, but different agencies in the UN. I'm talking about UNICEF, UNDP, the World Food Program, et cetera. And I think that IFIs do have the potential to provide resources for the work of the United Nations. My third question is what initiatives or discussions are currently underway in order to ensure a greater level of inclusion when it comes to accessing the resources of IFIs. I remember, and just I'm wrapping up, not all countries can access special drawing rights. And of course, Cuba is one of them, and this is something that would be interested in learning more about.

Thank you. Now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Norway to be followed by United Kingdom.

Thank you, Mr. President. Norway would like to commend the continued engagement of both the IMF and the World Bank Group in advancing the FFD agenda and the Seville commitment. Cooperation is key, and without the contribution of the Bretton Woods institutions, our goals will be even further out of reach. We are at a critical juncture with multitude of crisis. And in this context, stronger coherence between multilateral institution is essential. One key takeaway from the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings last week is that the multilateral finance institutions are delivering in times of crisis. The war in the Middle East is having devastating and far-reaching consequences. This comes on top of the consequences of the Russian aggression in Ukraine and other ongoing crisis. And while navigating the ongoing crisis, we should not lose long term development out of sight. We rely on the Bretton Woods institutions to continue delivering on the FFD agenda. We need to do more to mobilize private capital. The World Bank and the IMF also play a key role in assisting countries with capacity building on tax policy and administration. This is also a key priority for Norway. We welcome the work on debt transparency and one key outcome from CVI was the commitment by IMF, the World Bank and the UN to develop a set of principles for responsible lending and borrowing. And broad ownership is important. Transparency and responsibility are cornerstones to securing sustainability. So Norway encouraging the Bretton Woods Institution and the United Nations system to deepen coordination and to strengthen country ownership. Thank you.

Thank you. Now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of the United Kingdom to be followed by Peru and South Africa.

Thank you, Mr. President, for convening this dialogue.

And to IMF and World Bank colleagues, including our own Executive Director Vida **** for their continued engagement with the UN financing for development process. We always say there should be closer collaboration between the UN and IFIs, and I think this meeting is demonstrating how we bridge that New York-DC gap. Progress on implementing the SIVIA commitment will depend on how well the UN and Bretton Woods institutions continue to understand each other, align mandates and incentives, and coordinate their respective political and funding power, as well as expertise and tools, to support ever more effective delivery on the ground. We welcome steps taken by the IMF and World Bank since FFD4, including to improve lending, mobilise finance at scale, support economic institutions, respond to low-income and vulnerable countries, and to drive governance reforms and help on the debt issues. With increasing climate and energy shocks, as well as fragility and fiscal pressures, the challenge now is about ever more timely response, consistency alongside adaptability and pace. And the success of SIVIA will be judged by whether countries really feel tangible improvements, finance delivered faster, at greater scale, and aligned with national priorities. The UK will also continue to try to help advance some of this through the Global Partnerships Conference and Illicit Finance Summit we will host.

This year and through our G20 presidency in 2027.

And we welcome your partnership for those as well.

Thank you.

Thank you. Now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Peru to be followed by South Africa.

Thank you, President. Thank you very much to all distinguished participants for this segment. Peru would like to reiterate how much it appreciates the historic relationship of constructive and close collaboration that it has held with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Peru is a member of these institutions since 1945 and 1946, respectively. This has allowed us to access not just financial resources in favorable conditions, but also specialized technical assistance and valuable spaces for international coordination when it comes to finance and economics. In that framework, we would like to highlight the importance of continuing to uphold an international financial architecture that is even more resilient. that facilitates timely access to financing in favorable conditions, promotes sustainability of debt, and also contributes to inclusive and sustainable development. And this is even more relevant in the current context where public debt of emerging countries is at very high levels. And this is in a scenario that is characterized by a great level of financial volatility. It is key to bear in mind current global challenges such as climate change, and geopolitical tensions, which can significantly impact the economic perspectives for our countries and therefore create new pressures on our capacities to provide responses for these issues. Peru reaffirms the solid basis of its macroeconomic fundamentals and our commitment to fiscal responsibility and debt sustainability. We continue upholding policies that are geared towards preserving trust, keeping inflation low, and also promoting internal and external investment. Thank you, President.

Thank you. Now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of South Africa.

South Africa aligns itself with the statements of the G77 on China. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to the presenters for sharing the updates on the work of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund. and how they are engaging in supporting the implementation of the commitments of Seville. We welcome this interaction between the UN system and the Bretton Woods institutions, and we believe the complementarity and the cooperation between the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions needs to be further strengthened. We would like to re-emphasize a point that was made by Her Excellency Galiano. To close the development finance gap, we believe there is an urgent need for a step change to make the global development finance architecture fit for purpose at a multilateral IFI level, at a regional development bank level, and at a national development bank level. According to Finance and Common, there are 550 public development banks around the globe at a national level. Africa's public development banks account only for 1% of of total public development bank balance sheets, whereas 80% of the total balance sheet resides in G20 countries. And we would like to get a sense from the World Bank in terms of what steps are being taken to try and close this gap and to support public development banks in playing their role in the sustainable finance architecture. And then lastly, we would also echo a question that was raised earlier regarding the enhancing the voice and representation of developing countries. in both IMF and the World Bank, and what practical steps will be undertaken to move this agenda forward? Thank you.

I thank the representative of South Africa. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, there is a lot of interest from the member states, from civil society and international organizations in intervening in this dialogue. However, we have already exceeded the time allocated. I ask remaining speakers to consider intervening in one of the next two dialogues. With this, I now invite the panelists to provide their brief responses or closing remarks. Given time constraints, please keep your remarks to one minute. I will go to first Ms. **** then Mr. Bugameli, and Her Excellency Gileanu.

Thank you, Ambassador. I think in the time available, it's very hard for me to do justice to all the constructive comments, but let me just say, look, cooperation and dialogue clearly is the way forward. I also note very much the comments about building on existing tools, being realistic and being practical in the way forward. I also noted a comment from the very start about the importance of durable homegrown solutions to policy reform. I do think that is a very important point, and this is an area where the IMF, through our policy advice, through lending programs and capacity development, we are really wanting to do that in concert with developing countries own programs because only through that way can you have national ownership of these reforms, uh, you know, which if, if, if implemented long term are the things that will deliver growth and productivity. There was a question around strengthening surveillance. I can assure you that the IMF is all over strengthening surveillance. In fact, we want to do this in a way that identifies risks much more early, do it in a way that identifies spillovers, negative spillovers into countries, and also for our mission teams to provide countries with more actionable and targeted and granular advice. I think traditionally in the past there have been very general messages, but we realize that especially with the shock that we have now, the impacts are actually asymmetric. So actually the more tailored and granular we can be, the better. There was a question, and I will stop after this, on IFI UN engagement and where we can do better. Actually, some of us executive directors had engagement on FCS issues, so fragile conflict affected states issues this morning. And I note that actually, you know, there are many difficult cases. We at the IMF have our own fragile conflict affected state strategy that has been in place since 2022. And we had a very productive discussion this morning on how resident coordinators and IMF country representatives can work more closely together on the ground with a range of stakeholders to really understand the drivers of conflict and how we can integrate those drivers and sensitivity into our macroeconomic surveillance and also program design as necessary. So I will stop there. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Also, same for me. I mean, a very, very good question. I agree with Vida and with all of you that clearly collaboration and cooperation on the FFD agenda is key at this point. All our institutions must work together and collaboratively in a way in which we We need to leverage our comparative advantage but at the same time provide the same messages to the client countries when we go there. So any reasoning around country platforms and so on is key in this dimension. Let me also pick up some question there on the collaboration again, a question by, I think it was coming from Canada. where we see more space for collaboration. There is space for collaboration on everything, on every topic, but I would say and agree with Veda that fragile conflict and situations are those where we can do better because those are very difficult situations and therefore they are the expertise, the different expertise of our institution become very important to put together all the different perspective, the different diagnostics, the different data that we have. We also had an interesting meeting this morning with UNICEF has a strong collaboration with the World Bank, and we clearly see space there to do things to the benefit of the most vulnerable, in this case, obviously, children. Another question was on the small states and the natural catastrophes and so on. Just for your information, as a board, we are working with the president and management on a small states strategy. Obviously, small states is a general definition, and within the most small state category, there are very heterogeneous countries. So our strategy tried to respond to all these different needs, and we are in the phase of implementing the strategy, and your countries will see the implementation of the strategy through our main engagement with the countries, which is the country partnership framework. Then some questions on voice. I didn't go into it in my introductory remarks, but there has been a robust discussion at the board how to strengthen the voice of the client countries. And so there are many initiatives that we decided to push forward on terms of capacity building, the expansion of the voice secondment program at the bank, providing research analyst position in this chair. We have established, we want to establish a board working group looking specifically at low income countries. So these are a few of the things that we are discussing, just to tell you that the discussion at the board is being very robust and the board members are very open to further strengthen voice of the leagues country. Thank you.

Thank you. The questions were not addressed to me. They were addressed to the representatives of the IMF and the World Bank. But I do think that this afternoon's conversation reflects the need to intensify the relationship between the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. And above all, we've heard a number of comments and questions We've spoken about official development assistance and we heard the number last week, there's been a drop to 23%. And we know that it's not enough. We know that we must mobilize a large amount of private capital and attracting investment also depends on this kind of productive dialogue that we should be having. President Sanchez, the president of Spain, when he closed the Seville conference, presented the Seville plan. It's the Spanish government's plan for ourselves. And he was speaking about reinforcement and reform, reinforcing multilateralism and the relationship between global institutions. But that has to go along with reform to make sure that they are more inclusive and they are impact focused. Thank you.

Thank you. I thank our distinguished panelists, Veda, Mateo, and Her Excellency Eva, and for your very sharing the insights and substantive contributions. And also all the delegation for participating in a very productive exchange of views. And now we will briefly pause the meeting and invite the panelists in the next dialogue to take their seats on the podium. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, we will now begin the second of our dialogues this afternoon on the subject of very, I think one of the important subject, debt. I'm pleased to welcome our distinguished presenters for this discussion. I also welcome our moderator, Ms. Vedapoon. chair of the IMF Liaison Committee and who will conduct this session. I look forward to an open, constructive and productive exchange of views. Ms. Vedha, you have the floor now.

Thank you, Ambassador. And in the interest of time, I don't think I need to say much by way of introduction on this topic. I mean, debt was clearly a key focal point of the Seville conference, and there were lots of packages of actions that were agreed under that conference, from things like debt crisis prevention, lowering the cost of borrowing, debt transparency, and many other initiatives. And actually, State Secretary Galeano did my job for me to set the scene on many of the debt issues. So I think without further ado, why don't invite our speakers and then I can invite the interactive discussion from the floor. Uh but let me first go to his excellency Mister Amar Benjama, vice president of Ecosoc and the Perm Rep from Algeria.

Thank you chair. Excellencies. Colleagues. The current situation in the Middle East is providing a significant shock to not just energy prices and food and fertilizer trade, but it's also leading to significant tightening of global financing condition of our countries. Many of our countries are already burdened with high debt levels. And this will further constrain the fiscal space for our countries to invest in SDGs and could lead to even more debt challenges. Yes, debt challenges. Even before the recent shock, external debt service has risen to level of the early 2000s. and domestic debt vulnerabilities are growing. The poorest countries, especially in Asia and Africa, are being hit, hit the hardest, and face a financing squeeze with grappling with large unmet SDGs spending needs. to face this situation. Time is for swift and effective action. Now, the Seville commitment offers a concrete way forward. It lays out an ambitious debt package to address debt challenges across the four pillars, debt crisis prevention, lowering borrowing costs, reforming the debt architecture and improving debt sustainability and credit assessment. There are 17 high impact debt initiatives under the Seville platform for action. Implementing Sevilla commitment is the responsibility of member state that many of its actions require indeed the active support active support of the Breton Woods institutions this partnership is already shaping, but let me say too slowly, shaping in several areas, such as the establishment of the joint working group on responsible borrowing and lending, the improvement of the World Bank's debtor reporting system and the global debt data sharing. The IMF World Bank review of low income countries, debt sustainability framework. Innovative instrument are advancing as well, but too slowly, including the global hub on debt for development swap and growing uptake of debt pose close supported by Spain, thank them. and the World Bank. The commitment also called for an inclusive United Nations debt dialogue, bringing together member state, creditors, MBS, private actors, and the new borrowers platform to address gaps in the international debt architecture. and track progress on the civilian debt package. These are the most visible areas where Bretton Woods institution engagement is necessary and is advancing. But the implementation of the civilian debt package contains many further action where these institution support to say it likely where these institutions support will be essential for us. To conclude, the Seville commitment gives us both the direction and the tools to build a development-oriented debt architecture. with the active engagement of the Bretton Woods institutions, we might have the opportunity, the real opportunity, to turn Seville commitments into results. I thank you.

Thank you, Your Excellency. Now I will turn to Mr. Jeroen Clij, Executive Director for Belgium at the IMF.

Thank you, Chair. Excellencies, colleagues, let me frame my remarks on debt today around what has changed since Seville and what that implies for stabilisation, development financing and the international debt architecture. First, the global fiscal environment is more constrained in an increasingly uncertain environment. Global gross government debt rose to just under 94% of global GDP in 2025, and it is projected to reach 100% by 2029, and this is earlier than previously projected. At the same time, interest spending is rising quickly as debt rolls over at higher rates. Our fiscal monitor, which has just been released during the spring meetings, notes that interest payments rising from about 2% to nearly 3% of global GDP, and this in only four years' time. The war in the Middle East adds a further layer of strain to familiar but reinforcing channels, higher commodity prices, Tighter financial conditions, weaker activity and in some cases also higher security outlays. And in downside scenarios, the fiscal tail risk that is debt at risk rise materially and fast. So the implication is simple. For many vulnerable countries, the question is increasingly one of liquidity and refinancing under stress, not only long run solvency. Second, the debt financing landscape has changed materially. More fragmented creditors, more volatile access and especially shorter maturities. And this matters in particular for lower rated borrowers. Also fiscal monitor notes that for some lower rated sovereigns issuance has weakened and maturities have shortened. We also observe that interest payments in low income development countries reached historic high levels relative to revenue, around 15 of total revenue. Third, concessional resources are under pressure. Fiscal Monitor documents that official development assistance declined in 2025 in a desk service sample, falling from 1.8% of GDP in 2024 to 1.5% in 2025, and that a significant share of reductions translated into financing shortfalls in several countries. And in this environment, mobilizing private finance is not just about more money. It is also about credible policies, predictable frameworks, and institutions that reduce uncertainty and crowding investment. Fourth, and this brings me to an important message, inequality and coordination challenges make debt dynamics more persistent. First on inequality. When income and wealth become highly concentrated, aggregated demand weakens. And in such an environment, debt dynamics can become more persistent as growth can no longer do the work of reducing debt ratios. Second, on policy coordination in a fractured world. In an environment of geopolitical fragmentation and frequent supply disturbances, the classic monetary fiscal mix becomes harder to manage. Credibility and coordination become even more valuable because supply shocks can put fiscal demands and inflation control into tension. And this is directly relevant for today's shock environments, where supply-driven price pressures and tighter financial conditions can raise debt service costs at the same time that social pressures increase. And then fifth, the IMF core role remains macroeconomic stabilization through surveillance, financing, policy advice, and capacity development. And we have to work closely with partners, particularly with the World Bank. And of course, we do that in line with our respective mandates. And on that, there are three operational priorities. First, make debt resolution faster and more predictable. Strengthening the sovereign debt architecture to deliver more timely and predictable outcomes is essential, including through continued engagement in the global sovereign debt roundtable and efforts to reduce delays and uncertainty in restructurings. Protracted restructurings are costly, not only economically, but also in lost reform momentum and development outcome. Second, improve diagnostics and early warnings. Improving debt diagnostics and early warnings is critical in a rapidly evolving environment. The LICDSF review is a key opportunity to preserve credibility and predictability while strengthening the treatment of longer-term risks and avoiding unintended market signals. Third, put debt transparency and data at the centre. Debt transparency and better data are fundamental. They are not technical add-ons. They lower borrowing costs, rebuild trust and strengthen market confidence, especially when investor sensitivity to fiscal news is high. The Seville agenda increasingly converged on a pragmatic division of labours. For countries, countries need to advance domestic policy action, build credible medium term fiscal frameworks, stronger revenues and public financial management and sound debt management. For international partners, they need to coordinate more closely, including where resources are constrained and tightening across the multilateral system itself, and this to ensure timely and coherent support when risks are elevated, and then also for the IMF. The IMF needs to anchor macro stability and support macro critical reforms. And of course also for the World Bank and the other development bank, they need to continue to lead on structural reforms and investment for sustainable growth. And one practical point to end it. Early pragmatic cooperation among the IMF, the World Bank and the UN matters more than ever. information sharing and here I want to insist especially coordination on the ground that can help anticipate gaps, avoid duplication and keep stabilisation and development objectives aligned, and that is also why today's session is so important. Let me stop here.

Thank you very much, Mr. Cleek. I have two more speakers on my list for the moment. So I've got Ms. Teresa Solbes-Castro, Executive Director of the World Bank Group, and then a warm welcome to our civil society representatives. I've got Mr. Rodolfo Bellano from Latin Dad Civil Society FFD Mechanism. Just to say, I think we're running quite a little bit behind, so I think we will seek to try and catch up a little bit so we have enough time to talk about investment and also have time to wrap up with some closing reflections. And I know there were a lot of things mentioned in the earlier session. So we'll try, Mateo and I will try to pick that up towards the end. But Teresa, over to you and then Rodolfo.

Thank you, Ambassador Tapa, State Secretary for International Cooperation, Ms. Eva Granados, Mr. President Benjamin and Mr. Bejarano, representative of the CSOs. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, We agree that the global debt challenge that many developing countries are facing is not an abstract macroeconomic concern. It's a development imperative as it constrains countries' ability to invest in people, in climate resilience, and in sustainable growth. Addressing this challenge requires coordination among all of our stakeholders here, United Nations, Bretton Woods institutions, member states, public and private stakeholders. And therefore we value very much and thank you for the engagement on this topic. In the past, the World Bank Group has responded to the debt challenge and continues to do so in multiple fronts, especially on debt transparency and strengthening capacity and offering solutions. First, on the transparency front, the bank has undertaken several actions, as some of my colleagues have already pointed out. It issued this report on radical debt transparency, which made clear that it was very important not to stick only to partial disclosure, but also to advance on institutional reforms and that also we should engage in further reporting, including data on loan by loans of national administration and SOEs. In addition, the World Bank intensify its outreach with G7, Paris Club, and other G20 creditors, and it's preparing a modernization of its statistics with the objective of launching a new generation of the debt reporting system in 2027, one that will expand on coverage difficult topics like domestic debt, guarantees, and more complex instruments. In fact, on this transparency front, the bank has also pioneered a pilot project in Indonesia that is testing real-time automated reconciliation of data between borrower and creditors, which is a very high level case. Finally, as my colleague stated, we with the IMF have been revising the debt sustainability framework for low income countries and we expect to finalize this exercise by mid 2026 after the results of the consultations process that are undertaken. Second, on capacity building is a requisite to support transparency. In this regard, the World Bank Group through the fourth phase of the debt management facility is providing hands-on technical assistance to help individual countries strengthening debt recording, monitoring, legal frameworks, and institutional coordination, but not that at individual level. On an aggregate level, the World Bank is helping also capacity building in the global debt architecture. Specifically, has been, as my colleagues have said, during the sixth round of the global sovereign debt roundtable, a new restructuring playbook and a liability management operation manual relaunch to help countries with step-by-step technical guidance for debt management. It also introduced a tracking table to speed up financial, final bilateral signatures and improve transparency on comparability of treatments. Finally, on solutions, I believe we need to recognize some of the efforts done by these institutions in helping countries meet present development needs without compromising debt sustainability. In this front, I would like to highlight that IDA is a very powerful instrument on debt prevention. It gives grants and funds at very concessional terms and hence limits the effects on the debt stocks of the different countries. However, we would like to highlight also some of the newest instruments that the World Bank Group is using, for example, the debt swaps that the World Bank is trying to scale at the moment. We know that last year it was the Cote d'Ivoire project, but just a few weeks ago, we add another scheme for Angola. And in this case, the solution was innovative in the sense that it included mega guarantees with this one World Bank Group approach. And because the operation embedded in a larger package that target also other sound policy reforms. Also, I would like to take into account that the World Bank has been encouraging its clients to make use of the hands crisis toolkit, which allows using undisbursed funds by repurposing previous loans granted to the different countries. In this regard, also, the crisis response window of IDA 2021 that allocates 3.7 billion could provide much more velocity, flexibility, and scale to response to the crisis. And now allow me to wear my Spanish hat for a second, as I would like to highlight the three complementarity and initiatives that my colleagues have already mentioned. First, the global hub for development. that as my colleagues have presented, has been working or advancing during the past few months with the World Bank together. We hold actually a side event during the spring meetings and the objective was to have all endorsers and interested stakeholders to convey directly to the World Bank what the perspectives were around the two pillars. This, namely the repository that works also as an online platform, but also on the technical assistance system. Secondly, on the Alliance for Debt Service Suspension Plus, a foundational work keeps being undertaken to advance on the three priorities that are expanding adoption among bilateral creditors, standardizing legal and operational frameworks, and promoting uptake for private credit cultures. In this regard, Spain has been meeting other stakeholders and endorsers such as Canada, UK and the London Coalition to share knowledge. But beyond this, Spain on its own, it's advancing on this technical work to ensure that the design of these clauses do not create these incentives for the private commercial lenders. Third, on the Seville Forum on Debt, Spain approach has been pragmatic and complimentary. We acknowledge the assistance of international architecture and our goal is only to fill implementation gaps without creating parallel tracks. The forum for us is a space for dialogue, exchange of experience and policy innovation, in no way a negotiation body. The goal is to place debtors at the center, but also bring along creditors, international financial institution, academia and philanthropists to enhance knowledge and serve as a platform for open, inclusive and candid dialogue among its members. In short, the goal is to foster the implementation of the whole package of Seville. In conclusion, we believe these initiatives reflect a shift from debate to delivery in the global debt agenda. And from the World Bank perspective, this is exactly the direction we must continue to take, working in close partnership with the United Nations and all our shareholders to ensure that debt solutions support sustainable development and the achievement of the sustainable development goals. With that, thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Castro. I will hand over to Mr. Bejarano now and to be followed by actually two civil society representatives, I think. No, we're running out of time. Okay, we'll open the floor. Oh, I see. Okay, why don't we?

Go first to Mr. Bejarano. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. I'm speaking on behalf of the civil society mechanism for financing for development. Speaking of debt architecture is not a technical exercise, it's a political exercise. Debt burden has become a structural obstacle. It hampers sustainable development, budgets for debt, devoted to debt reimbursement have doubled in just a few years for indebted countries. There are 35 economies that have debt burden making up 60% of public income. The current situation and solutions proposed are not working and they won't as long as payment to creditors take precedence over the needs of citizens. So states need to devote increasing resources to debt rather than health and education. This coupled with the spectacular plunge in official development aid and the effects of war. This is not sustainable nor is it just. There's a need to change the general architecture of debt. We think several elements are important. Number one, we need multilateral mechanisms that are transparent and binding to lower public debt, to bring all creditors on board to ensure a just situation. Second, We need to ensure automatic debt suspension clauses when there are various disasters, external shocks, climate disasters, and others. There shouldn't be a situation where countries that need fiscal space are punished for experiencing a disaster. We also need to have a necessary dialogue between creditors, IFIs, and MDBs, and credit rating agencies. In that regard, we welcome the creation of the platform, the platform of lending, of borrowing countries and creditor countries. This allowed for a more just process to unfold in line with this severe commitment. But we need a framework on sovereign debt, on public debt. And this should be a democratic mechanism, a crisis prevention mechanism. We want fair financing that doesn't lead to over-indebtedness, that doesn't lead to a number of conditions that responds to market imperatives. We also need to act with regard to special drawing rights. We need more SDRs. We need more lending with favorable conditions. We need to take account of the various nerve centers where vulnerability develops in societies. Financing needs to take account of justice and sustainable development. Distinguished delegates, reforming the structure of debt is vital to reestablish confidence in the multilateral system in accordance with the Addis Ababa commitments and in the context of the 2030 Agenda. and to ensure that no country has to make a choice between paying debt and protecting its population. Furthermore, we need to send a message to the international community that the international community really wants to rectify this historic injustice. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm going to open the floor, but let's be mindful of time because we do have to do investments. So I'm going to call Mexico, representative of Mexico first. And then others should also punch in.

Good afternoon. When you talk about public debt, you need to understand that it's a necessary tool for financing for development. This allows for strategic investments to be made. It allows for one to respond to shocks and to bolster resilience. It's a vital tool. So our debt policy needs to be careful and transparent. It needs to be population centered. We've prioritized domestic financing at fixed rates. We're prioritizing here to long term rates in order to foster resilience to precariousness and external shocks. We're also prioritizing instruments that are coupled with SDGs in order to channel resources appropriately and to invest in projects that have a positive impact on the environment. So we're trying to calibrate debt with good fiscal management, but we need sustainable management at the national level. We are encountering limits at the international level with structural constraints. As the report on sustainable development says, the problem of debt is not only a matter of solvency, it is a matter of debt restrictions. Debt servicing costs limit the margin of maneuver to invest in crucial areas like health and fighting climate change, et cetera. Furthermore, the structure is increasingly fragmented. There's a series of mechanisms and stakeholders. The restructuring system takes too long and doesn't meet countries' needs. Given this fragmented system, the Cevia commitment shows us the need to move forward to a more transparent debt system. Thank you.

Thank you, Mexico. I've got a member of civil society, I think Vivat International, if I'm not mistaken. Over to you.

Thank you, Chair. Excellencies, panelists, and civil society colleagues, I speak on behalf of the NGO Committee on Financing for Development and Vivat International, a faith-based network working at the grassroots in countries most affected by unsustainable debt, shrinking fiscal space, and overlapping crises. Across our communities, debt is not abstract. It is the cancelled clinic, the unpaid teacher, the missing social protection floor. The Seville commitment must connect to these realities. First on debt and debt sustainability, we need a rights-based approach, full transparency of public debt, stronger oversight and timely fair restructuring that includes all creditors. while protecting essential social spending and ensuring adequate investment in climate adaptation and resilience. Second, on international development cooperation, official flows must support, not replace domestic efforts. We need predictable concessional finance aligned with country priorities, along with transparency, accountability, and meaningful participation of civil society. Third, on domestic public resources, resilience starts here. Countries need fair and progressive tax systems, action against illicit financial flows, and budgets that are pro-poor and gender responsive. In closing, implementation will define success. It must be coordinated and grounded in people's live realities, recognizing that climate vulnerability and financial vulnerability are deeply interconnected. Vivat International stands ready to support financing for development that advances dignity, justice, and sustainability. Thank you.

Thank you for your remarks. I've got next on my list Children and Youth International, also a member of the CSO community.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for the floor. I speak on behalf of the FFD Children and Youth constituency. Every debt that a government takes on is an advance on the future earning of its citizens. Most of those citizens are not yet old enough to vote when the borrowing decisions are made. Some are not yet born and yet they are the ones who would work for decades to service those obligations. Paragraph 59 of the drafts outcome documents calls for enhancing the common framework. We welcome these wordings. But we need it to mean something. First, We call for closing the old out loopholes. Private creditors currently face no binding obligations to participate in common frame work deals. Paragraph 59 must call explicitly for a statutory mechanism to prevent old out litigations that prolong restructuring and raise the cost of everyone. Secondly, introduce intergenerational impact assessment before any sovereign borrowing is approved. At multilateral level, an assessment of the 30 years fiscal impact on education, health, and youth employment should be mandatory. Third, protect social floors, restructuring conditionality attached to IMF programs must contain explicit protection for primary education and basic health spending. Name the floor, enforce it. Finally, we stand with African Union call for a UN framework convention on sovereign debts. This is critical to any framework of the future. We did not borrow these debts. Do not make us pay for it with our schools. Thank you.

Thank you for your contribution. Maybe before I close this panel and turn over to Matteo, I wonder whether any of our panelists would like to pick up any of the points briefly. If not, Jeroen, do you want to?

I can say just something very briefly how important it is to have this discussion and attention for the debt servicing costs. I think that is something we would all need to look at, especially in an environment of probably higher interest rates. So that's an attention point and that comes up very, very regular in the IMF board discussion. So let me stop here.

Thank you, Jean. Maybe just let me pick up a couple of points before I turn back to the President or maybe turn over to Matteo directly. So I just wanted to make the point on, you know, public sector creditors and private sector creditors. I mean, you know, we are talking about coordination between different actors in the debt space a lot, but actually I would say recently there's been more of a focus on how to get the private sector on board to make sure that there is transparency and more information exchange between official creditors in the private sector, but also we're working at the fund together with the London Coalition to really identify who these private sector creditors are because a lot of them are non-banks, some of them are commodity houses. It's a very diffuse sector. So we are trying to do our best to do close engagement with the private sector and bring them in to our discussion on closer coordination so that restructuring processes can accelerate. I think the other thing I just wanted to mention, the gentleman there talked about holdouts, you know, again here in London under the London Coalition, we are trying to make sure that for non-bonded commercial debt, there is a way to, you know, avoid holdouts to restructuring in a contractual fashion so that people come and work out their debt and make sure that we don't hold up restructuring because as Jeroen and others were saying earlier, you know, this is the thing that holds back growth and productivity in the economy and then just maybe Finally, on social spending, if I may, we at the board, we've been increasingly attentive to this issue of social spending. And I think there are social spending floors and targeted reforms in our IMF programs. And I would say through our recent desk surveys, actually the share of programs with social spending floors has increased significantly. And these targets have evolved from very broad non-specific floors to more targeted definitions reflecting country needs and capacity. So we will keep working with partners to promote adequate, efficient and sustainable social spending. But thank you for raising that point. So maybe, I don't know, am I turning back to you, President? Yeah.

I thank Ms. Betapoon for guiding this discussion. I also thank our distinguished panelists for their insights and for their substantive contributions and those delegations who participated also from the civil society in a productive exchange of views in this uh, sessions on date. I now briefly pause the meeting and invite the panelists in the next discussion to take their seats on the podium. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, we will now begin the third dialogues for this afternoon on the subject of another important topic, investment. I'm pleased to welcome the distinguished presenter for this discussion. I also welcome our moderator. Mr. Mateo Bogamelli, the dean of the board of the directors of the World Bank Group, who will conduct this discussion. Again, I look forward to a very open, very constructive, and very productive exchange of views in this discussion as well. So Mateo, you have the floor now.

Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. In the interest of time, like Vida, my introductory remarks will be very, very brief. We know that the severe commitment reaffirmed UN member state commitment to catalyzing sustainable investment at scale in infrastructure, human capital, climate, natural resources, and the like. So this segment of our meeting today is an opportunity to highlight our approaches, the approaches of our institution to mobilizing investment across public and private sector, and this is the theme of the day, how to strengthen the collaboration and the cooperation among our institution. So let me stop here and move to the first speaker. We have His Excellency, Mr. Paruyr Ovanessian, Vice President of ECOSOC, Armenia. The floor is yours. Thank you.

Mr. President, Matteo, Vedat, it's good to see you after our productive exchange in Washington very recently with the ECASOC and international financial institution. That's a nice former to keep. Distinguished colleagues, we are meeting at the moment of heightened global uncertainty. The war in the Middle East is sending shockwaves through energy markets, trade corridors, and global supply chains. The implications for investment are immediate and profound. Energy price volatility is driving inflationary pressures, while supply chain disruptions are increasing the cost of doing business. If these challenges are sustained, they will further increase the annual 4 trillion SDG finance and investment gap in developing countries that is highlighted in the Seville commitment. As a result, many developing countries will fall further behind instead of catching up. Fiscal space for domestic public investing is tightening. Debt burdens have reached levels not seen in 20 years. Affordable finance remains out of reach. Private investment growth in developing countries has been sluggish and slowed significantly, falling from nearly 12% annually in 2000, 2009 to 6 and 7% since 2010. The preponderance of private investment also remains concentrated in a small number of markets. Many countries, especially the most vulnerable, are bypassed. Domestic financial markets in many countries lack depth and breadth to channel savings into productive long-term investment. While we are seeing growth in some areas, such as record level of sustainable debt insurance and of renewable energy investment in 2024, with renewables reaching twice the level of fossil fuels, these flows remains uneven and insufficiently aligned with country needs. The cost of capital for sustainable infrastructure in developing countries continues to be significantly higher than in advanced economies. This undermines the viability of projects and slow down progress in sectors like energy transition and digitalization. Scaling up investment will be central to restoring sustainable development momentum. The full and timely implementation of the Sevilla commitment represents our best path forward. Sevilla recognized that the World Bank, along with regional and national development banks, are uniquely positioned to provide affordable financing with development impact to help develop markets and to crowd in private capital. But to address the scale of the challenge, we need to do much more together. The Seville commitment provides a set of concrete actions on how these can be achieved. Scale up financing and investment, maximize development impact, strengthen resilience to shocks and reinforce multilateral institutions and cooperation. In the area of blended finance, the Seville commitment makes a clear call to scale up impact focused approaches that share risks and return fairly between the public and private sector. In this context, the World Bank could support work towards the harmonization of effective blended finance instruments, including by collaborating with private sector groups such as the Secretary General's Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance. The World Bank could also explore the scaling of successful transactions such as the recent 510 million securitization structure by the IFC. Second, on project pipeline development, the Seville commitment calls for the establishment of a pooled technical assistance platform among MDBs to originate, prepare, and support infrastructure projects. Leveraging existing mechanisms such as the Global Infrastructure Facility can support this call. Third, on local currency financing, the Seville Commitment proposes a joint platform among multilateral and other public development banks to better manage liquidity and foreign exchange risks, including through diversification. The World Bank could identify ways to increase the use of local currency financing, including local currency loans and credit enhancement. Fourth, development banks should continue to increase their lending capacity and strengthen their ability to work better as a system in accordance with country-led sustainable development priorities. Taken together, these actions will mean a shift to a more systemic approach to mobilizing investment. The question before us is how we can move forward with translating the severe commitment into concrete action. The leadership of the World Bank Group will be decisive in answering this question. From shaping project pipelines to scaling blended finance to addressing the cost of capital and crowding in private investment, the choices you make can set the direction for the broader system. I look forward to our discussion. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Your Excellency. Let me now pass the floor to Marcos Chigiato, Executive Director from the World Bank Group.

Thank you very much, Mateo. Let me start by saying that a critical element of the Seville commitment is to scale up sustainable investment in infrastructure, human capital, climate, and natural resources. I would begin then by saying that the World Bank Group mobilizes investment at scale, not only through our regular loans to the public and private sector, but also using guarantees, blended finance, local currency solutions, capital markets development, and IDA concession of financing. Just to illustrate with a few numbers, the group is the largest mobilizer of private capital to emerging markets, and the pace is accelerating. The World Bank Group has mobilized from the fiscal year '21 to '25, 242 billion in private capital. We have developed a guarantee platform, which is housed in MIGA, that has issued $12.3 billion last year. Now last year is the first year of the platform. That number is roughly a 20% increase when compared to the previous year. On blended finance, another topic very important for SEVIA, since fiscal year 2018, which is our last capital increase, the IFC has committed 4.4 billion in blended finance. And this has allowed mobilizing more than $27 billion. And that's a leverage ratio of more than six times. The institution has delivered substantial amounts of financing, but we have to keep pushing from the board for more as the global challenges are immense and growing, as several speakers have mentioned today. Let me also say a few words on the bank renewed strategic focus on job creation. I believe the Minister of Sweden has mentioned a bit before. And this strategy on jobs basically guides all our investment strategies across the group. And the jobs agenda is based in three main pillars. First, infrastructure and human capital, regulatory and business enabling environment, and the private capital mobilization. And under these three pillars, we have five sectors, which are the sectors with the highest jobs multiplier potential. It's infrastructure and energy, agriculture, healthcare, tourism, and value-added manufacturers, to which the bank has also revamped its approach to industrial policy, and we believe that's a critical advance of the institution as well. Please allow me to bring one concrete dimension or sector to our today's dialogue that has great capacity to boost investments, but also has strong implications on SDGs and great potential for strengthening partnerships between the bank and the UN system, which is water. The bank has just launched a new water strategy, so we can be focused on how to tackle this underfunded challenge while delivering resilience benefits for health, for food, for climate and growth. The aim is to advance water security for 400 million people by 2030, organized across water for people, water for food, and water for the planet. And instead of one-off projects, these are standardized solutions models across water services, sanitation, irrigation, flood and drought risk management, among other topics. Private investment is currently only 10% of water sector capital expenditure, and the water strategy aims to raise this to 20% over the next decades. Let's remind ourselves that sustainable water management not only supports resilient infrastructure and human capital, but also drives climate adaptation and mitigation for communities worldwide. Let me finally mention a very specific example of a country platform, something that was mentioned by Spain that I believe could be replicated in other countries. Brazil has recently developed a climate and ecologic transformation investment platform we call BIP, and this supports the achievement of Brazil's ambitious climate goals by scaling up transition investments from all sources aligned with government's climate transition plans in three key sectors, nature-based solutions and bioeconomy, industry and mobility, and energy. And this is again aligned with the previous discussions and it's based on the G20 framework for country platforms. And this platform will support the efforts of advancing Brazil's NDCs. We can already see impressive results. It is a platform built to connect the most challenging projects. We do not bring easy projects for the platform, only the difficult ones, and this has already mobilized more than $25 billion. This has facilitated also more than 80 connections between projects and potential financiers, and Brazil stands ready to share this experience with other countries. I'll stop here, Chair. Back to you.

Thank you, Marcos. So let me now pass the floor to Mr. Regis Sondag, Executive Director, IMF.

Thank you, Mr. Bougameli. Mr. Chair, Excellencies, and ladies and gentlemen. Let me begin by putting the issue of investment into perspective. The average weighted GDP growth across low income countries is projected to rise from 4.2% in 2024 to 5.3% in 2026 and to remain at or above 5% on forward. We've several LACs among the world's fastest growing economies. However, pronounced cross country divergence and persistent downside risk indicate that growth remains insufficient in many LICs and fragile and conflict affected states to deliver job reach and inclusive growth and durable gains in per capita incomes. These dynamics underscore the need for renewed momentum to foster stronger growth while preserving macroeconomic stability, including debt sustainability. In addition, growth in many LICs, notably African economies, is not sufficiently investment-driven to generate sustained gains in productivities. The central challenge is therefore not only the pace of growth, but also its composition and therefore the quality of investment. Let me highlight key priorities on investment strategies needed to achieve the kind of growth we desire for LICs to achieve the SDGs. First, scaling up investment requires a stable and credible macroeconomic environment. High debt burdens and rising debt service costs are increasingly crowding out investment, underscoring the need for stronger domestic revenue mobilization, prudent fiscal management, and credible medium-term frameworks that create a space for growth enhancing public investment while protecting priority social spending and human capital expenditures. Second, public investment must be more strategic and catalytic. Robust, well sequenced, and context-specific structural transformation is needed. Boosting productivity will require sustained and complementary investment in human capital, particularly education and health, alongside physical and digital infrastructure. On the latter, empirical evidence shows that low-income countries have the lowest marginal return on capital, significantly lagging advanced economies and emerging market and tend to attract predominantly low R&D intensive investment. With limited fiscal space, priority should therefore be given to high impact sectors, particularly energy, transport and digital infrastructure that directly reduce production costs and crowd in private investment. This should be complemented by strengthening public investment management to reduce inefficiency and maximize returns. Mobilizing private investment at scale requires shifting toward higher value added sectors that support industrialization, diversification, and productivity gains. And we all know what this implies. Sustained reforms to strengthen the business environment, improve legal and regulatory frameworks, enhance contract enforcement, invest in skills, foster entrepreneurship, address informality, and deepen linkages between foreign investors and domestic firms. Third, addressing financing constraints and deepening financial systems is essential to sustaining investment. Narrow and fragmented financial and capital markets continue to limit the availability of long-term local currency financing, thereby increasing exposure to external shocks and currency risks. Expanding instruments such as infrastructure bonds, green bonds, and diaspora bonds can help mobilize domestic savings more effectively. Supporting investment at the firm level, particularly for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, is also critical in translating micro-level investment into jobs and inclusive growth. As we are concerned with time, let me just mention two other key avenues to promote investment. One, deepening regional integration to boost cross-border investment and enhance intra-regional supply chains. In this context, advancing implementation of initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area is not only a structural priority, it is also a strategic response to an increasingly fragmented and uncertain global environment. Two, the financing for development commitments provide critical opportunity to unlock investment at scale in low-income countries and in Africa. In this context, Bretton Woods institutions, in line with their respective mandates and development partners, have a key role to play in scaling up concessional resources, expanding blended finance, supporting countries' efforts in reducing risk for private investors, and strengthening the global financial architecture. I will stop here. Thank you,

Chair. Thank you very much, Regis. And then, Our fourth speaker is Miss Noelia Mendez Santolaria, Dawn Civil Society FFD Mechanism, please.

Thank you very much, colleagues. After having listened to you and speaking from my experience as an Argentine woman, I still wonder How exactly do the IMF and the World Bank contribute to sustainable development? And when I ask this, I'm thinking about your governance structures that are trapped in perverse geopolitical dynamics and that historically have favored rich countries. And because the IMF actually in its legal department has affirmed that their commitment to macroeconomic stability is an exemption to operate with the international human rights legal framework. And beyond today's speeches, in the practice, your statements are not, and your interventions are not explicitly designed to ensure human rights, but rather to ensure that debt is paid back with interest and to see economic growth, which in and of itself does not create dignified jobs and wellbeing. In my country, the IMF, continues to operate and meanwhile on the streets we see repression against pensioners and people with disabilities and high net worth people pay even lower taxes. If anybody in this room thinks the IMF works for development, I invite you to study the case of Argentina and to recognize that the only time that my country had any kind of debt relief that is compatible with development was at the time that it did not depend on this organization to sustain itself. I also heard concerns global fragmentation in reference to conflicts and wars. And so I'm left wondering why should we trust the World Bank and its participation in structures such as, for instance, the Board of Peace or its reconstruction model that is private sector based in Gaza. It is alarming. reconstruction cannot be a business, it should be a multilateral process in the framework of the United Nations, based on the needs and priorities of the Palestinian people, and it should take into account appropriate reparations. Whatever investments we promote here cannot contribute to the accumulation of capital. Education, health, and water and sanitation are not markets, they're public goods. Evidence shows that when these are privatized and financialized, inequality increases as well as social fragmentation. And basing our investments on sustainable development requires putting an end to the system for solving disagreements between investors and states that has been used by transnational corporations to obtain unjustified profit at the expense of states and to condition and block public policies that affect the interests of these multinationals even when they are trying to ensure human rights. This isn't a technical debate, it's a political decision. Do not have the wolves taking care of the sheep. And I would also like to stand in solidarity with Francesca Albinoni, special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, and all of the judges of the International Criminal Court. And I demand that these people stop being persecuted and work to make sure that criminals and their accomplices face justice.

Okay, thank you. So let me now open the floor for questions. I see France.

Chair, one comment. In the context of our G7 presidency, France defends the transition of a traditional model of aid to development of a new approach grounded in mutually beneficial partnerships. This change is needed in a period of transition for financing for development, which is characterized by three trends. First, investment needs in emerging countries and developing countries have never been as high as they are now and they continue to rise. Secondly, public resources available to finance these investments are falling short of meeting this need. And third, mobilizing private capital has become a central pillar of architecture of financing for development. In this context and building on what was said before, a large gamut of instruments has already exists. And the main challenge is not financial innovation, but rather scaling up innovations in order to reach the SDGs. There are several avenues here, fully mobilizing the catalytic role of multilateral development banks, moving forward toward a greater standardization of assets, greater transparency about risk, and a better understanding of the risk return profiles for investors. We need to beef up local financing, we need to enhance hedging instruments, and we need to consider the originate to distribute model and we need to look into some of the more promising opportunities that it could offer. We need to improve upstream management of projects and we need to above all develop capital markets. In closing, none of these solutions can succeed at scale without stronger coordination of the ecosystem of financing for development, improving coherence, interoperability and partnerships among development institutions, public the banks, the UN and private investors. Microphone has been cut off.

Thank you. So let's now move to Mexico.

For Mexico, the discussion on investments needs to move beyond the level of mobilizing resources. We need to talk about the quality and the capacity of undertaking structural reforms aligned with national sustainable development priorities. The severe commitment is clear. Investment is a means, it's not an end in itself. Our experience has shown that Investments only have a sustainable impact when they bolster productive capacity, curb inequality, support public strategies in the long term too. Thus, Mexico set up a environment conducive to the use of capital resources with measurable human and social impacts. We've supported sustainable development with one clear principle, public resources have a catalytic effect and and we need to unlock the private sector as well. We have a trailblazing instrument that closes a large number of activities in six different sectors with five social plans and environmental plans. We're establishing a direct link between financing and the structural gaps that need to be met. What's more, we're creating comparable data. We're reducing the risk of greenwashing. And we are addressing investment decisions. This is therefore a long-term vision. That vision is reflected in Mexico's plan, the plan to create 1.6 million jobs and to close the investment gap. We're also strengthening investor confidence in order to further draw on productive investments. Thank you.

Thank you. So let me now give the floor to Common Fund for Commodities.

Well, thank you, excellencies. Mr. President, you are a blessing to us. You made it possible. We brought World Bank and IMF together in this forum. We normally don't have much to talk. I just want to share one structure that we are now fighting with. The fund that you are discussing here is all good things, but our experience at the Common Fund for Commodities is that it's not going to the point where it is needed the most, to the smallholders, to the SMEs. In my organizations, we started receiving applications after this COVID and now in the range of hundreds, but we can fund only a part of it. And we have been trying to receive and funding the projects only which are in the range of one to two million, but most of the applications are asking for 300,000, 500,000 and they are piling up, we cannot do anything. Thanks to the United Kingdom, they came up with an idea that okay, if you want to work on this project which is less than half a million, we will take a part as a fast loss guarantee. And that came as a big blessing and with that kind of funding, I think we'll be able to do much more than which we are doing now. So we will request IMF and IFC to come to the point of smallholder SMEs so that we can do together. I know that you are but we can at the Common Fund Commodities, we see that we are missing you there. Thank you.

Thank you. So now the floor goes to Eurodad.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair. I speak on behalf of the Bretton Woods Project and also the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism. We believe that the private sector and private finance can play a key role in promoting sustainable development. That said, we're frustrated that the discussions on the topic seem to disregard decades of academic research and experience of many states represented here. While we welcome the recent launch of the World Bank report on industrial policy, after the World Bank and IMF spring meetings, we left concerned about the focus of the meetings on deregulation as a means for states to create a business-enabling environment. It does not seem an exaggeration to conclude that the basic approach to private capital mobilization by the global north shareholders of the IMF and the World Bank can be summarized as follows: We will continue to reduce ODA while increasing our military spending, are unwilling to consider debt relief or engage in a negotiation of a UN debt convention, or move forward with new issuances or developmental use of SDRs. We therefore wish you luck with taking charge of your own development by creating an enabling environment for the private sector, which incidentally often benefits our own companies. That is, private capital mobilization is the only available option, regardless of its potential negative impacts. As this forum focuses on private capital mobilization, FDI as a panacea to address lack of action on key reforms of the international financial architecture and the global safety net, it seems appropriate to highlight study that found that between 2005 and 2020, transnational corporations repatriated an annual average of 1 trillion USD, corresponding each year to 4.2% of global FDI stock. The regulatory role of the state is key to ensure the private finance plays a meaningful role in ensuring the states can meet their economic transformation aspirations and human rights obligations. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And then the last speaker is from Children and Youth International, please.

Mr. Chair, thank you for the floor. I speak on behalf of the Financing for Development Children and Youth Consistency. In 2025, global foreign direct investment flows fell to $1.1 trillion, the third consecutive annual decline. The countries that saw the sharpest drops were also the ones with the youngest populations. Investment is leaving the places that we need it most. And the places that need it most are exactly the places where young people are starting businesses, building communities, and looking for the kind of long-term capital that makes a difference. Paragraph 38 of the draft outcome document calls for MDB reform to scale private investment in developing countries. First, we call for investment reform to be designed with young people as economic agents, not just beneficiaries. Second, private investments do not subsidize the public investment required to achieve the SDGs. Third, mandate a youth SME window. Every MDB capital increase or replenished should include a dedicated facility for youth-led small and medium enterprises, not youth empowerment programs. Fourth, paragraph 40 references blended finance. In the current model, they do not work. Private returns are de-risked publicly while social returns are unguaranteed. Finally, use national development banks. Paragraph 39 is weak on domestic investment institutions. National development banks, which reach local entrepreneurs that MDBs cannot, should be explicitly resourced to serve youth business ecosystems. Investment in young people is not philanthropy. It is the only rational bet.

Thank you. Thank you all. So let me see if any of the speakers at the table want to reply to any of the questions and comments made. No? Okay. So I can do -- I can say something. myself, you know, there was a question on the contribute to the -- our institution to sustainable development. I just want to address this from the World Bank Group perspective. As you know, the World Bank provides financing in order of many, many billions. We are talking about something around 120, 140 billion, depending on the year, and then we are able to also mobilize private capital for development. So this is, I think, is an important contribution. The second element that I would like to to stress here, which is very much connected to the fact that all of you, all of us are looking at the contribution of our institution to development, is our renewed focus on outcomes. So there will be a way to look at what we deliver, looking at the outcomes that we think we can deliver through our projects. And this is a very transparent way of increasing the accountability of our institution. We know that the needs in terms of financing are huge. Clearly, we know that we can deliver what we can deliver with the capital and the public capital that we have, and therefore it's very important in our view, the private capital mobilization agenda. I couldn't agree more with every single word that the French delegate said. So this is very important, is an important agenda. We are working on it. There are many dimensions in that agenda. You mentioned local financing, local market development, originate to distribute Just to reassure you that there is open dialogue with the board of the World Bank Group, we are following every single piece of these changes, we are asking many, many questions on possible trade-off that this agenda may raise, and we are collaboratively contributing to that. I also agree, I already mentioned this in my answer, but with the Mexican delegate that investment is just a mean to reach targets. And as I said, the targets are the outcome that we should reach. So please look at what we do from that perspective. Clearly, we are fully aware that we need to bring quality investment and impact to our client countries, and we want to be measured on that. The very last point on the jobs agenda and the deregulation, actually this is a discussion we had at the Board. If you look at the Development Committee paper on jobs, it's not deregulation, it is having the correct regulation of industries and sectors. So this was a very robust discussion we had at the Board, so I want to reassure you there. Let me stop here and Ambassador Bortapa, over to you.

Thank you. Thank you, Matthew, for guiding this very interactive discussions on this very important topic. I also thank the executive directors of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund and the vice presidents of the Economic and Social Council for their insight and for their contributions to the discussions on the all three important topics this afternoon. With this, the excellencies, distinguished colleagues, the forum has come to the conclusions of the special meeting with the Bretton Woods institutions. We'll now hear the closing remarks. First, I would like to invite Mr. Matteo Buggiari, the Dean of the Board of the Directors of the World Bank Group to deliver his closing remarks.

Thank you. Thank you again, Ambassador. I can be brief because we already had a very rich discussion, but it's important that at least highlight what I think is what we can bring back to Washington as a result of this discussion. I would say that the keyword was collaboration and cooperation among our institution, something that is happening in Washington, but with the UN system and more in general. This cooperation and collaboration have different dimension, all relevant is collaboration and cooperation between the management of our institution, is between staff at the technical level, is between the board of our institution and all of you, so the member states here at the And this is very important. In this regard, I would like to thank, again, Ambassador Tappa for the great collaboration for working together this year and last year with Ambassador Ray, the same thing. So I think we strengthened significantly the collaboration at our level. Cooperation and collaboration is not only between the different pieces of our institution, but is also a dimension, a geographical dimension, is collaboration at the global level, is collaboration at the regional level, is collaboration at the country level, which is, they are very important. It's collaboration on many different dimensions, is upstream, what we call upstream, and many of you mentioned diagnostics, data, and so on. This is very important because our institution look at the same country from different perspectives, so putting together all Different perspective can only enrich, uh, our, uh, our action and, uh, you know, help, uh, help each other. This is upstream, but it's also downstream in the way we design project, in the way we deliver projects. and also capacity building, which is something that our institution do together, and advisory in terms of policymaking and so on to our countries. The World Bank Group is fully committed to partnership. I would say that this is the first thing that Ajay Banga started doing the first day at the World Bank, and I think he showed his commitment strengthening the collaboration and making them more explicit and more formal And I think it's something that can only improve in that regard because there is a strong commitment from the president, from management, from the board. Partnership means many, many things. It means joining forces in terms of financing, in terms of knowledge and competence. It means leveraging comparative advantages, which is also important, especially with sort of not lack, but limited financial resources. But let's also think about partnership from the perspective of the client countries. From the perspective of the client countries, the fact that our institution move together is a way of reducing their costs also, because interacting with many different institutions saying many different things It's not really, uh, uh, good for our client countries, and the World Bank is pushing, uh, what you know are called these mutual reliance framework that are done not only to, uh, uh, you know, uh, reduce maybe, uh… the burden, the cost on our side, but for the client countries to face a single framework. So this is very important. And obviously, the other point is the co-financing in joint projects. This is something that is really increasing, and also because, I mean, from the World Bank perspective, there is a completely different attitude. And this is something that Ajay Banga brought to the institution in favoring co-financing with bilateral donors, other institutions, and so on. I think These are all positive development. Let me stop here and over to you again. Back to you.

I thank the Dean of the Board of the Directors of the World Bank Group for his closing statement, also underlining the importance of the cooperations and collaborations between the United Nations. and the BWIs. I next invite Ms. Vedapoon, Chair of the IMF Liaison Committee to make her closing remarks.

Great, thank you Ambassador. And I couldn't possibly top Matteo's very eloquent conclusion, but just to say, I welcome very much all the comments today, the constructive suggestions, but also the criticisms. I mean, I think this is what we're here to do, to listen to our stakeholders and really to take into account. the points of views and we will take this back to Washington and discuss not just with the board, but also with our colleagues on staff and with management because these are all very legitimate concerns. And I definitely hear, you know, the impatience, you know, I suppose given I have an Italian sat next to me, Rome wasn't built in a day, but I think I can assure you that every day at the fund, staff, management and the board work very closely together with input from external stakeholders to really execute our mandate in the best possible way. And I think part of the reason we are here is really to not just do cooperation, but to engage in sincere dialogue. I think there will be areas where we have slightly different perspectives or very different perspectives, but I do think a fundamental part of how we move together is understanding each other better and our respective mandates. And I know in particular at this time with tighter fiscal budgets and fiscal space more generally, I think there's a focus on streamlining, avoiding duplication, avoiding fragmentation. And I think maybe taking a leaf out of Matteo's book, if you were looking at the international financial system from the perspective of a borrower country, I mean, I would not blame anybody for thinking, well, there are lots of different initiatives and funds and processes in place, how do I navigate that? And I think we will try everything in our power to make sure that we service our client countries in the most effective possible way. I think the other thing I just wanna say is, you know, on debt challenges, you know, clearly the current crisis is, is exacerbating this, uh, debt service, uh, costs are rising and you know, what we can do at the fund is to keep supporting countries. who are thinking about their debt position, their fiscal space, we will support countries as they go through debt restructuring. I would say, I think generally there is a bit of an issue of too little, too late. And so what Mateo was saying about more upstream engagement, the way I like to think about it is that when you think about debt issues and you're talking about debt restructuring, that's almost at the end of the process. But what we're trying to do at the fund is take a stronger risk management approach, a stronger preventative approach, which goes to the point that I and others were raising at the beginning about long-term fundamentals mattering a lot. And the IMF is very active in helping low-income countries and many of our members on foundational issues to do with fiscal and debt resilience, because this does pay off in the long term. And just going back to the last theme we were touching on investment, you know, actually we did a report recently, the low income country macroeconomic prospects report, and there's very clear evidence there of strong correlation between, you know, strong fiscal institutions, strong fiscal frameworks, and that actually attracting higher quality and more FDI flows into low income countries. And Here at the IMF, I've said this before in other fora, but I know sometimes we are very much known for writing detailed economic monitoring reports. Of course, we are known for our lending and our instruments, but I would say our capacity development work is maybe less well known and less well understood. I would say for our fiscal department at the IMF, we have many departments, but the fiscal department, two thirds of their work is to support countries through capacity development to do things like improve your tax administration, improve the efficiency of your public spending, improving your public financial management, helping countries establish a single treasury account so you don't have, you know, 50 accounts or more spread across government, you know, without ways to track it. We help countries anchor their borrowing plans and medium term debt strategies. And we have helped them on statistics. If you don't have statistics and basic ways of measuring data, you don't really know the size of the macroeconomic issues that you're looking at. So I say this, and sorry to be a little bit long, but these long term fundamentals on fiscal institutions really, really matter. And I hope colleagues around this table can come to recognize capacity development as just as important to our surveillance and lending role. One thing I just wanted to pick up if I may, Ambassador, is somebody mentioned in the earlier session on small island development states and small developing states. You know, actually we do have a working group on this issue at the IMF board. We do engage with our World Bank colleagues on this group of countries. And, you know, in terms of the support we provide, I mean, you know, I think the IMF staff work very hard to give them tailored support on things like how you manage inflation, how you manage supply chain pressures, but also we're thinking of how best to integrate the concerns and the experiences of small developing states as we go on to do the review of conditionality and program design, which concludes this October. And we are also thinking about, you know, in the context of the Resilience and Sustainability Trust Fund, which is to kind of deal with long-term balance of payment pressures, you know, from climate related shocks. How do we make sure that those considerations and the need to invest for climate resilience is better built in to, you know, any reforms to our low-income country debt sustainability framework. I mean, the final thing I would just say is, you know, I want to say I really value the inputs from our civil society colleagues. I look forward to engaging further with you on all aspects of the IMF's work. I just wanted to point out that we are in the process, as the managing director has said last week at the spring meetings, to update our 2015 guidelines on CSO engagement. I mean, it's been, you know, 11 years since we updated them. So, you know, given the evolving stakeholder landscape and really the need to get some good country level lessons for our policy work, you know, we are engaging with reviewing of these guidelines in two different stages. There was a kind of survey section that we did earlier, but now we're in the kind of discussion section with virtual and hybrid meetings between now and June. So if there's anything I can do to help to feed in your inputs, I just wanted to say that we're ready, as is Robert Powell, who was our senior representative in New York. But just to say we really value the views of CSO colleagues because you bring an insight and a country level input that will actually enhance the way in which we scrutinize programs at the board, but also allows us to look at our policy in a more holistic fashion. So I will stop there and thank you for everybody's contributions today.

Thank you. Thank you, Veda, for your very encouraging closing remarks and Now let me deliver my closing remarks. Excellencies, distinguished executive directors, dear colleagues, both Matheo and Beder, thank you so much actually for all the contributions. And I really happy that this throughout this years, even last years when I was as a vice president of the ICASSOC bureau, Also there is a co-facts of the, of the, the, so be a commitment, yeah, financial outcome of the, you know, FFDF4. I had the opportunity to, with you all, and very closely. And as we conclude this special high level meeting, and I would like to thank again, executive directors of the both IMF and the World Bank Group. as well as all the member states and other stakeholders for your substantive as well as the solution oriented discussions today. At a time when escalating conflicts and rising trade tensions threaten countries efforts to mobilize resources for sustainable development, exchanges such as today's are all the more important to advance implementations of the severe commitment through the effective multilateral cooperations and collaborations. The current conflicts represents another shock, as we highlighted, to a fragile global economy and a shock which impacts our global but asymmetrical with the poorest and most vulnerable countries hit the most even During the launch hour, we discussed the same things that this context requires an even closer cooperation between the United Nations and the BWIs. The IMF and the World Bank highlighted that the SBI commitment provided a framework to strengthen such cooperation. And the BWIs have already stepped up in the implementations of the SBI commitment, which I deeply appreciate for. Our member states insisted that such cooperation should take place at all levels, from technical to political one, and to live up to the Subia commitment. Our wide range of member state also insisted on the need to accelerate the reform of the international financial architecture, including by increasing the representations and participation of developing countries in IFIs in response to member states asking for concrete examples of opportunities for greater UN and BWI corporations. The World Bank and I have highlighted, actually we all highlighted that complimentary work in countries in conflict and post conflict situation is one of these areas. On date, the discussions highlighted how the severe commitment gives us both the directions and the tools to build a development oriented data architecture. Speakers also highlighted that the active engagement of the BWIs is a critical element to be able to turn the SBI commitment into results. To do this, we must also ensure a pragmatic divisions of labor with countries advancing domestic policy actions and international partners coordinating more closely. On investment, the importance of focusing on both quantities and the impact of investment was stressed to ensure a fair sharing of risk and rewards across public and private actors. Ecosoc has a distinct role and responsibility to advancing this agenda. Ecosoc is also the place where development financing and three dimensions of sustainable development can be brought together in one inclusive space in which all the countries' voices are heard and reflected. Our task now is to ensure that today's discussions is carried forward through sustained follow-up. To do this, again, we must maintain political focus and the commitments made in Seville and on the contributions of the World Bank and IMF to the implementations. We'll use the Ecosoc Forum to connect today's conversations with the wider work underway this week on systemic issues trade, private business and finance, country led strategies and data monitoring and follow up. And we will strengthen accountability by regularly taking stock of progress, identify gaps, and helping to build greater coherence across institutions through the broader FFD follow-up architectures and other Ecosoc engagement throughout the year. Let us therefore treat this meeting not as a standalone event, but as a part of continuing process of the implementations. ECOSOC will do its part to carry this agenda forward in partnership with the IMF and the World Bank Group and with all the member states. I thank you all once again for your engagement and your substantive contributions. The special high level meeting with the Bretton Woods institutions is now closed. excellency distinguished delegates uh the forum will reconvene tomorrow at 10 a.m. in this conference room to continue its program of work the meeting is