EU Statement – UN Financing for Development Forum: General Debate

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The Candidate Countries Serbia^*, Albania^*, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, the potential candidate countries Bosnia and Herzegovina^* and Georgia, align themselves with this statement.

Halfway through the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the SDG financing gap remains substantial. Escalation of geopolitical tensions and conflicts and fallout from the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine, inflation and spiking food and energy costs together with the adverse impacts of climate change are taking a heavy toll on the global economy and all sources of financing. We continue to see the most vulnerable being hit the hardest, further jeopardized by global food insecurity and debt unsustainability.

The multiple crises add to inequality across countries and societies and that is why more resources are needed for a green, inclusive and just transition to strengthen resilience and to leave no one behind. It is critical to advance on the sustainable development finance agenda and address the key issues for the realization of commitments and policy actions agreed by the United Nations to increase financial flows for sustainable development.

The FfD and Addis Ababa Agenda for Action are at the heart of EU international cooperation and partnerships, and for the EU Global Gateway, which is the EU’s contribution to narrowing the global investment gap, reducing strategic dependencies, accompanying global twin green and digital transitions, and boosting competitiveness and security of global supply chains

The EU and its Member States maintained their position as the world’s leading donor of ODA in 2021, providing 41% of global ODA. The EU is moving towards using ODA more catalytically to generate additional finance for sustainable development, for instance by strengthening domestic finance systems, supporting sustainable debt management or engaging in triangular cooperation.

We provide support to multilateral initiatives such as the G20 Common Framework to help countries that need debt restructuring. We will continue to assist development countries in improving debt transparency and sustainable debt management capacity.

The Addis Tax Initiative Declaration 2025 signed in 2021 was an important milestone to advance the domestic revenue mobilisation agenda. Domestic resource mobilization is a key pillar of the EU’s collect more spend better approach, looking both at the revenue and the expenditure side. This agenda is also important in our efforts to support countries to create an investment conducive environment for the roll out of the Global Gateway strategy.

The EU is fully aware that public finance will not be sufficient to address the challenges we are facing to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. As Team Europe, we join forces to support low- and middle-income countries to accelerate the flow of international private capital towards sustainable investments in the Global South at scale and affordable costs. The EU is preparing a comprehensive strategy to scale up sustainable finance in low- and middle-income countries, with the support of a dedicated high-level expert group.

We use guarantees and blending instruments and innovative financial instruments as green, social and sustainability linked bonds, to catalyse private capital to sustainable investments in frontier markets. Where the risk is perceived as too high by investors, our European Fund for Sustainable Development + (EFSD+) will play a crucial role. The guarantees are expected to generate more than €50 billion in investments in key sectors of Global Gateway, such as renewable energy, digital infrastructure and climate resilience and health.

We stand ready to continue assisting developing countries to channel and catalyse both public, concessional and private finance towards investments aligned with the objectives of the SDGs, the Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity framework, attaining long-term sustainability.

Thank you.