Over 1,000 civil society representatives gathered in Seville ahead of the Fourth Financing for Development Conference (FfD4) to push priorities such as debt justice, taxing multinationals, feminist economic transformation, and ending military spending hikes. They warned that the current global financial system deepens inequality, drains resources from the Global South, and needs fundamental, not incremental, change.
Frustration grew as the International Business Forum was given greater prominence and civil society was initially limited to two short interventions in official sessions. Security restrictions, harassment, and exclusion of speakers sparked talk of a boycott. Only after sustained pressure did the UN and Spanish hosts open the program, allowing approved civil society actions calling for financing justice, debt cancellation, and feminist development.
Side events became vital spaces for advancing feminist foreign policies, care economy reforms, and calls for legally binding agreements on tax, debt, and development cooperation reframed as reparations. The civil society closing statement rejected the official Compromiso de Sevilla as favouring Global North interests and urged a fairer global financial architecture.
The eventual inclusion of civil society voices was a testament to their persistence, courage, and determination to shape global financing debates—qualities they vow to carry forward beyond FfD4.
