The current international financing architecture is inadequate to address the multiple, intersecting crises that disproportionately impact those with the least power and the greatest vulnerabilities. Climate crisis drivers and consequences are not being met with the urgent and balanced response needed for the wellbeing of both people and the planet. Inequalities, both between and within countries, continue to grow, exacerbated by human-induced conflicts and disasters, and fuelled by the blind pursuit of GDP growth as an end in itself. Financial flows are either insufficient or actively harmful and extractive. Public services and social protection systems are chronically underfunded, largely due to austerity measures which amount to an assault on women and girls, profoundly impacting women's livelihoods, incomes, care work, access to essential services, jobs, safety and freedom from violence.
ActionAid considers the fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) to be a crucial moment in 2025 for making urgently needed transformations to the international financial architecture. To this end we have offered full support to the collective submission of the Civil Society FfD Mechanism (CSO FfD Mechanism) submitted to UNDESA on October 15th 2024 as part of the formal preparatory consultation process.
The ActionAid briefing paper, which you can download below, pulls together some of the evidence from research and advocacy across the ActionAid federation over recent years, developed with our allies, notably in women’s rights organisations, trade union federations, climate justice, economic justice and feminist movements, collating the insights that are most relevant for overhauling the international financial architecture. We focus on the interconnectedness of issues, notably around climate, debt, tax, austerity and the gendered impact of all of these, laying out the case for a feminist just transition. If we are to transform the international financial architecture, and make it fit to address intersecting systems of discrimination and multiple crises, we need to join the dots.