Global development cooperation is falling short, with financial gaps and systemic inequalities. Officials call for better integration of financial institutions and private sector support ahead of upcoming reform discussions.

With nearly 600 million people expected to remain in extreme poverty by 2030 and developing nations facing annual sustainable development financing gaps of up to $4 trillion, officials have raised concerns that the global development cooperation system is failing to meet urgent needs.

At the opening of the Forum, Rae stressed the importance of expanding development cooperation beyond just UN and state-led efforts to fully integrate international financial institutions (IFIs) and private sector contributions. “The notion that this is somehow a UN-alone project, or a UN and nation-state project alone, is wrong. It must include, in an integral way, what the IFIs are doing at every level and what the private sector is doing at every level,” he stated.

Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, highlighted the challenges posed by an increasingly fragmented system. “Too many countries are weighed down by unsustainable debt, shrinking fiscal space, and a development system that remains fragmented and misaligned with urgent needs and priorities,” he said. “In this dysfunctional system, women and girls bear the heaviest burden, facing disproportionate impacts that threaten to reverse decades of hard-won progress on gender equality.” The Report of the Secretary-General on trends and progress in international development cooperation, presented at the Forum, underscored these stark realities.

Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development Navid Hanif emphasized that the current global development cooperation system is “not effectively responding to the needs and priorities of developing countries and local communities, which are at the front lines of efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.” Similarly, Cristina Duarte, Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa, pointed to deeper systemic failures within the global economy. “Globalization has intertwined economies, yet the multilateral institutions established to regulate its forces are struggling to keep pace,” she noted. “The current economic order has facilitated unprecedented wealth accumulation, but it has also widened inequalities, weakened states, and marginalized billions of people.”

Duarte also highlighted a paradox at the core of development finance. “We live in a paradox. On one side, we have the responsibility, but financial resources are on the other side of the world. Decision-making power and financial capital are imbalanced in the global system,” she said, drawing attention to the gap between those responsible for implementing development initiatives and those who control the financial resources needed to do so.

The Forum takes place ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, scheduled for June 30 to July 3. During this conference, Member States will explore potential reforms to the global development cooperation architecture. The recommendations emerging from the Forum will contribute to these discussions, with the aim of ensuring that international funding mechanisms better support the world’s most vulnerable populations.