This year, we can make history by adapting an ambitious, sustainable development agenda and a universal climate agreement. But without the right financing and policies, we cannot achieve our ambitions… Addis Ababa can be the starting point for a new era of global partnership.” –UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon told world leaders in a video posted on YouTube in May.

The Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) is being held in Addis Ababa, from 13th – 16th of July 2015.

The conference aims to produce an agreement on the financial and non-financial means of implementation for the” post-2015 development agenda”. This framework, is a buildup on the Rio+20 Sustainable Development Conference to ultimately result in the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the successor of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The financing and implementation agreements at Addis Ababa will be fundamental for the SDGs that will be agreed upon by world leaders in the September UN General Assembly meeting in New York. The SDG targets will be formally adopted on March 2016 after the decision on its financing.Logo -  Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3)

The Reduction and ultimately elimination of illicit financial flows by 2030 in order to raise new development finance is one of the issues to be dealt by this conference. The creation of a global tax body to achieve this is a potential outcome.

Financing to close the infrastructure gap, promoting international development cooperation, ensuring policy coherence and an enabling environment at all levels for sustainable development are some of the key focuses of this conference ahead of the next phase of global development drive.

In Addis, the world moves from billions in financing commitments to trillions, with ever ambitious development goals.

The conference is being attended by several world leaders, top officials of various international financial institutions and more than 5000 delegates and guests. It is dubbed “historic” and “crucial” with the global development endeavor of the next decades at stake.

The symbolism of the conference being held at Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, which is one of the leading countries in the achievement of the MDGs and also the political capital of Africa, is of monumental significance.

So far on the conference

*The United Nations launched a new initiative, the Global Financing Facility (GFF), to help end maternal and child mortality by 2030. It was also announced that $12 billion funding has been aligned for country-led five year investment plans for “women’s, children’s and adolescent’s health” in the four GFF “front-runner” countries, the Dem. Rep. of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

*The IMF announced that it’s going to expand access to all concessional lending for developing countries by 50% in an opening speech addressed on behalf of its Managing Director, Christine Laggarde.

*The Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), (that are African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment bank, Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank Group), and the International Monetary Fund also announced plans to extend $400 billion in financing over the next three years ahead of the conference.

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Fetsum Berhane is an Ethiopian resident, economist researcher and a blogger on HornAffairs.

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