April 27, 2021

Video—“Financing for Development: A Little Shop of Horrors?”

The ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development was held from April 12-15. This year’s forum focused on financing the COVID-19 recovery. But what is Financing for Development (FFD), and how can it usher in transformative solutions to address the massive inequalities between the global south and global north? The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung – New York Office hosted an online talk show with activist and FFD expert, Tetet Lauron to try and answer these questions and take a critical look at the FFD Forum.

She spoke with other activists and policy experts about how addressing structural and systemic issues can make financing for development both sustainable, transformative and crucial in ending global injustices.

Guests:

Bhumika Muchhala is an advocate, activist, educator and researcher on the international financial architecture and the structural, racial and gendered inequalities between and within nations. As a political economist, she has two decades of experience in resisting neoliberal policy paradigms pushed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, as well as advocacy in UN Financing for Development and Sustainable Development negotiations. Since 2009, she has led Third World Network’s engagement on economic and financial governance from Brooklyn, New York, and before that she coordinated civil society advocacy on IMF loan conditionality at the Bank Information Center in Washington, D.C and led labor rights campaigns at the Worker Rights Consortium and United Students Against Sweatshops. She grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia during the Suharto era and is originally from India. Emilia Reyes is Director at Equidad de Género: Ciudadanía, Trabajo y Familia, a feminist Mexican organization. She is a highly visible figure in intergovernmental negotiations, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, Financing for Development, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and the UN Climate Change Conference. She is currently a co-chair of the Women’s Working Group on FFD.

Vitalice Meja is Executive Director of Reality of Aid-Africa and has over 20 years experience in development work, focusing on policy analysis and research on development economics. He is an expert on aid and development effectiveness issues, and has also been instrumental in the debt campaign in Africa.

The visual notes from the event can be found here.


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