Image of the Square in Seville, “4th International Conference on Financing for Development 30 June–3 July 2025 Seville, Spain”

MDBs at FfD4: More Attention, Few Breakthroughs?

Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have played a central role in financing sustainable development for over eight decades. Their growing prominence in international development cooperation is evident in the First Draft of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) Outcome Document, where they are mentioned over 40 times—a fourfold increase from the Addis Ababa…

Photo: Archive System in a library

Digitising – and thus (re)shaping – collective memory

Archives are the institutions of memory: categorising information about the past, they systematically store, preserve, and provide historically valuable records. This systematisation makes archives more resilient than what human memory can achieve, since humans recall information about a specific memory based on its “semantic” associative content. For science, archives “lay the foundations for future research…

Image of the Square in Seville, “4th International Conference on Financing for Development 30 June–3 July 2025 Seville, Spain”

Towards a stronger shared climate and development finance agenda: what role for the FfD4?

The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development comes at a critical moment for climate and development finance. Despite progress—such as increased climate funding over the past years, the establishment of the Loss and Damage fund, and the inclusion of climate targets in the World Bank’s mission—important challenges persist and remain unresolved. The negotiations on…

Images: Beach, Horizone, Reflection

Strengthening Climate Transparency for Climate Action

The world is falling short in keeping its climate commitment targets on track. Despite international commitments and national targets, progress remains slow, and many countries are struggling to implement measures that will keep global warming to below 1.5°C. One of the key tools to enhance climate action is climate transparency—as a foundation for evidence-based policymaking,…

FfD4 Countdown: A Watered-Down Proposal on Tax Expenditures Risks Undermining Countries’ Domestic Revenue Mobilization

Image of the Square in Seville, “4th International Conference on Financing for Development 30 June–3 July 2025 Seville, Spain”

Image by Gerhard Bögner on Pixabay

Governments’ decisions to grant preferential tax treatments have a direct impact on their ability–or inability–to finance their sustainable development goals. At the Fourth Conference on Financing for Development in June, countries must commit to greater oversight of tax expenditures, including implementing minimum reporting standards and rationalizing ineffective or harmful tax expenditures.…