Forum on financing for development follow-up, 18-20 April 2016 – latest update

The President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has circulated a note on arrangements for the 2016 Economic and Social Council forum on financing for development follow up.

The forum is being held in accordance with General Assembly resolution 69/313. Its modalities of participation are those used for international conferences on finances for development from 18-20 April 2016. The overall theme for the meeting, as decided in the ECOSOC decision 2016/11, will be: “Financing for sustainable development: follow up to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA)”. It will be chaired by the ECOSOC President and include:

• formal opening, with speeches by the ECOSOC President, the UN Secretary-General, the World Bank President, the Managing Director of the IMF, the WTO Director General and others, as well as keynote presentations
• general debate on Monday 18, 11.30 – 13.00 and Wednesday 20, 16.30 – 17.30 
• interactive dialogue with major institutional stakeholders on Monday 18, from 15.00 – 18.00 on “Fostering policy coherence in the implementation of the AAAA” 
• six interactive round tables will be held on Tuesday 19 on

A: “Global framework for financing sustainable development”

B: “Domestic and international public resources”

C: “Domestic and international private business and finance”

D: “Debt and systemic issues”

E: “Trade, science, technology, innovation and capacity-building”

F: “Data, monitoring and follow-up”

Each roundtable will be open to representatives of all participating States; up to 20 representatives of accredited intergovernmental organizations; up to 10 relevant entities of the UN system; three representatives of accredited CSOs; and the three representatives of accredited business sector entities. They will consist of a panel discussion with two or three panelists and one lead discussant in each roundtable, followed by an interactive debate

• panel discussion on the Global Infrastructure Forum
• consideration of draft intergovernmentally agreed conclusions and recommendations and a formal closing.

(For the tentative programme, see Annex 1 of the note)

Civil society participation

CSOs are invited to participate in the forum “in accordance with the established practice of previous international conferences on financing for development”, ie all NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC and all NGOs that were accredited to the Monterrey, Doha or Addis Conferences on Financing for Development and their follow-up processes. There will be a briefing for CSOs on Tuesday 19 April from 09.00 – 10.00 hours. Registration for CSOs will close on Tuesday 12 April.

The forum will be available on UN Web-TV.