In response to the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings, Eurodad says that the two institutions 'cannot be entrusted with the responsibility of the international economic system.'

• The first drop in ODA since 2017 sounds alarm bells for the future of aid, as new figures highlight a 7.1 per cent decrease
• The world’s poorest countries are among the most impacted. Just 16.5 per cent of aid reached Least Developed Countries in 2024, while 13.1 per cent remained in rich countries
• Will rich countries abandon aid in 2025? A panel of experts from Concord, Eurodad, Oxfam and Reality of Aid will answer this question on 23 April at 14h CEST. Register here

• Despite a slight increase in overall ODA (1.6 per cent in real terms), today’s aid figures show less than a quarter goes to the world’s poorest.
• The governance of development cooperation urgently needs to be reformed at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in June.

The involvement of private finance in infrastructure and services provision is not new. However, the focus on leverage private finance has increased in recent decades, particularly after the adoption of the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), at the Third UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD). Despite that, the initiatives promoted have proved to be far from what is needed, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seem increasingly out of reach. The current FfD process – as the only global space in which all countries have an equal voice – has the potential for transformational development in the global south. As the Fourth FfD Conference (FfD4) in Sevilla approaches, there is an opportunity for a thorough overhaul of private finance in development.

This blog first appeared on POLITICO Europe.

Written by Christina Fenandez-Duran (Oxfam Interim Head of EU Office), Javier García de la Oliva (Head of Country Engagement and Transformation Europe and Americas at ActionAid International) and Jean Saldanha (Director at the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad)).

Read the piece in full on EU Observer