Welcome to the United Nations 
Programme de la FFD4
Programme officiel
Programme for 1st juillet, 2025
FFD4 Multi-stakeholder round table 2: “Leveraging private business and finance”
Co-Chairs:
- H.E. Mr. Muhammad Aurangzeb, Federal Minister for Finance & Revenue, Pakistan
- H.E. Mr. Christopher MacLennan, Deputy Minister of International Development, Canada
Keynote:
- Mr. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, African Union Commission Chairperson (tbc)
Moderator: Mr Antonio H. Pinheiro Silveira, Vice President for the Private Sector, CAF
Panelists:
- H.E. Mr. Neal Rijkenberg Minister of Finance, Kingdom of Eswatini
- H.E. Ms. Retselisitsoe Matlanyane, Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Lesotho
- H.E. Mr. Situmbeko Musokotwane, Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zambia
- Mr. Boris Titov, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for Relations with International Organizations for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, Russian Federation
Discussants:
- Ms. Mary Beth Goodman, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD
- Mr. Eric Pelofsky, Vice President, Rockefeller Foundation
Background
Private business activity, investment, and innovation are significant drivers of sustainable development in the past decades. However, private sector dynamism slowed after the 2008 world financial and economic crisis, in parallel with the broader macroeconomic slowdown, which also led to a widening Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) investment gap. Annual investment growth in developing countries halved from 8% to 4% between 2007 and 2020. Many countries and sectors that need it the most continue to receive insufficient investment, particularly Least Developed and other vulnerable countries. Despite increased attention to innovative finance instruments such as blended finance and the growing adoption of sustainable business and finance legislation, investment in sustainable development have fallen short of expectations.
The Sevilla outcome document outlines actions aimed at addressing key barriers to unlocking private business and finance at scale in support of sustainable development, including: i) strengthening domestic financial and capital markets in developing countries, building enabling environments for sustainable development, building capacities for diversification and industrialization, and enabling greater access to finance for women, marginalized groups, and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises; ii) promoting foreign direct investment in sustainable development, and enhancing countries’ capacities to attract such investments, and scaling up and a new approach to blended finance, aimed at enhancing effectiveness and impact and scaling its use; and iii) setting financial incentives and regulation so that private investment and business activity are aligned with sustainable development, while supporting interoperability across jurisdictions.
Guiding Questions
- Which actions in the Sevilla Commitment are of highest priority so that private business and finance – at national and global level – can be unlocked at scale to support sustainable development, particularly in developing countries?
- What policy actions can strengthen enabling environments to unlock greater private investment in the SDGs and provide incentives to the private sector on sustainable development objectives?
- Which mechanisms can effectively crowd-in private resources for investment in sustainable development, reduce risks of investment in sectors and countries that need it the most and leverage limited public resources?