Road to Sevilla 2025

Chair: H.E. Mr. Bob Rae, President of ECOSOC

Opening and welcome remarks

• H.E. Mr. Bob Rae, President of ECOSOC
• H.E. Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations
• H.E. Mr. Philemon Yang, President of the General Assembly

Introductory remarks by the Co-chairs of the Preparatory Committee of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development and the Host of the Conference

• H.E. Mr. Zéphyrin Maniratanga Permanent Representative of Burundi
• H.E. Mr. Rui Vinhas Permanent Representative of Portugal
• H.E. Ms. Eva María Granados Galiano, Secretary of State for International Cooperation of Spain

• Chair: H.E. Mr. Bob Rae, President of ECOSOC
• Mr. Axel van Trotsenburg, Senior Managing Director, The World Bank Group [virtual]
• Mr. Bo Li, Deputy Managing Director, IMF

Programme

Panel discussion 4 on specific actions in the first draft of the outcome document on ‘II.A. Domestic public resources’

Introductory remarks and moderation

H.E. Ms. Merete Fjeld Brattested, Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations

H.E. Mr. Chola Milambo, Permanent Representative of Zambia to the United Nations

Panelists

Ms. Josephilda Hlope, Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation, South Africa      

Mr. Felipe Augusto Ramos de Alencar da Costa, Ministry of Foreign Relations, Brazil

Mr. Alain Siri, Ministry of Economy and Finance, Burkina Faso

Discussants

Ms. Mary Baine, Deputy Executive Secretary, African Tax Administration Forum

Ms. Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director, UN-Habitat

Interactive discussion (2-minute time limit)

Background and Guiding Questions

Domestic public resources are the cornerstone of sustainable development, providing fiscal space to invest in sustainable development, and generating incentives that shape economic and societal outcomes. Many developing countries still face significant obstacles in mobilizing domestic revenues and effectively utilizing their fiscal systems. These challenges stem from both domestic and international factors. Domestically, insufficient transparency and accountability in fiscal systems, weak alignment of fiscal policies with sustainable development, limited institutional capacity, and the underutilization of National Public Development Banks can hamper resource mobilization and effective use. International tax cooperation remains weak, and persistent challenges hinder the effective combatting of illicit financial flows.

The first draft of the outcome document for FFD4 addresses these challenges with concrete actions in four areas: first, commitments to ensure that countries have the necessary resources and that they are collected efficiently and spent transparently in alignment with sustainable development; second, strengthened international tax cooperation to ensure that international tax rules respond to the diverse needs, priorities, and capacities of all countries, especially developing countries; third, effectively combating illicit financial flows; and fourth, fully leveraging the potential of national public development banks.

Panelists in this session are invited to pay particular attention in their interventions on the proposals on support for domestic revenue mobilization and on combatting illicit flows and are invited to address the following questions:

• What room is there to significantly and further enhance international support to countries for domestic resource mobilization? What value would there be to setting an indicative floor for tax-to-GDP ratios that could galvanize action? (action 22 m)
• Which are the key components of a meaningful package of actions to advance the fight against illicit financial flows in Seville? (action 24)
• How best should a special meeting of the ECOSOC on financial integrity be designed to have impact and address financial integrity at the systemic level? (action 23 c).