Good afternoon,
Thank you for joining us today.
On behalf of DSG, I am pleased to present the Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2026: Implementing the Sevilla Commitment.
The report was drafted by the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development, representing a collaboration of over 60 UN and international institutions, including the IMF, World Bank Group, WTO, UNCTAD and UNDP.
The main message for the 2026 FSDR is clear and urgent: Development progress is imperilled by global fragmentation, geopolitical tensions and conflict. Developing countries are trapped in a catastrophic financing squeeze from compounding shocks. The implementation of the Sevilla Commitment represents the best hope to close widening financing gaps and achieve the SDGs.
With only four years remaining to deliver the SDGs we require a massive scale-up in investments; instead, regrettably the financing gap is widening.
Development aid is falling sharply. In 2025, 25 countries decreased their Official Development Assistance (ODA), leading to a 23 percent overall drop from 2024 to 2025, the largest annual contraction on record. Only four countries met the 0.7 per cent target – Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden. Based on preliminary data, ODA is expected to further decline by another 5.8 percent in 2026.
Developing countries, especially the poorest, face mounting debt pressure, with debt service burdens hitting 20-year highs. The international financial system has not provided sufficient, long-term financing on affordable terms for sustainable development.
Multilateralism itself is under threat. Powerful nations are redrawing trade and investment alliances, often at the expense of the poorest countries. This undermines the very foundations of global cooperation.
These challenges were recognized at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Sevilla, where UN Member States agreed on the ambitious Sevilla Commitment.
However, the FSDR 2026 shows that these pressures have intensified, with a financing squeeze and increasing fragmentation exacerbated by conflicts.
The recent conflict in the Middle East, for instance, has triggered a significant shock to an already fragile global economy. While the ultimate impact will depend on the conflict’s duration and severity, and the resulting arrangements for shipping and trade, we are already seeing clear repercussions for developing countries in relation to energy, food, trade and debt sustainability.
Despite these headwinds, the FSDR 2026 reveals the resilience and determination of the global community.
Implementing the Sevilla Commitment remains our best hope to overcome fragmentation and achieve the SDGs.
Let me share some positive insights.
• First, global growth was unexpectedly resilient in 2025, at 2.7 percent. While still below the pre-pandemic 3.2 per cent level. Certain regions and countries performed exceptionally well, with South Asia leading at 5.6 per cent.
• Second, the value of South-South trade has increased substantially, now accounting for 54 per cent of total developing country exports.
• Third, renewable energy investment reached a historic $2.2 trillion US dollars in 2024, finally surpassing investments in fossil fuels.
In a promising sign, many Member States and partners are already putting the Sevilla Commitment into practice, particularly through the Sevilla Platform for Action (SPA) initiatives.
Just to share a few examples of what this progress looks like:
– Since the Sevilla Conference, the Inter-American Development Bank has completed two issuances of Amazonia Bonds, totalling approximately $800 million US dollars .
– At COP30, the Green Guarantee Group launched the world’s first centralized, publicly accessible global database of green, climate-aligned guarantee instruments.
– Spain and the World Bank launched the Global Hub on Debt for Development Swaps, building on the record growth in debt swaps in 2024 to free up fiscal space for SDG investments.
These actions are timely and essential to confront the severe headwinds of fragmentation and the financing squeeze.
In closing, I want to reiterate that implementing the Sevilla Commitment remains the only viable path to bridging the financing gap towards the SDGs.
The world is now looking to the collective political will of Member States. We must move from the rhetoric of commitment to the mechanics of concrete action.
Thank you.