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In Seville, a Renewed Global Pledge to Fix Development Finance – and a Moment of Opportunity for Africa
SEVILLE, Spain — The recently concluded Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) has reignited global cooperation around the most urgent and complex questions facing the international financial system. Held in Seville ahead of the 20th Ordinary Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN-20), the conference delivered a sweeping set of reforms, collectively dubbed the Sevilla Commitment (Compromiso de Sevilla), aimed at closing the massive funding gap that continues to undermine progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
With over 3 billion people currently living in countries spending more on debt than health, education, or infrastructure, the pressure was high on FFD4 to deliver concrete action. The outcomes listed in the Sevilla Commitment are built on three pillars: scaling investment, addressing unsustainable debt, and reforming international financial governance, each echoing the long-standing priorities of African governments and institutions like AfriCatalyst, a Dakar-based development advisory firm that supported the consultations.
“The human consequences of rising debt burdens, escalating trade tensions and steep cuts to official development assistance have been brought into sharp relief this week. Yet, against this sobering backdrop, the Sevilla Conference has delivered a strong response, a unifying outcome document focused on solutions that reaffirm the Addis Ababa commitments made a decade ago, renews hope through the SDGs, and shows that multilateral cooperation still matters and still works,” said the UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohamed.
Catalyzing Investment at Scale
As a developing continent, Africa’s infrastructure, health systems and productive sectors need massive investment. Yet, the continent still faces the highest cost of accessing development capital in the world. The recently published Jubilee Report revealed that 46 developing countries between 2020 and 2022 spent more on debt interest than on healthcare, up from just 36 a decade earlier. 15 low-income countries and low-middle-income countries also spent more on interest than on healthcare.
The Sevilla Commitment recognizes this injustice and aims to provide and mobilize additional and accessible financing from all sources, along with sound regulatory frameworks and adequate risk management. This directly reinforces AfriCatalyst’s work in structuring innovative financing tools from blended finance facilities to thematic bonds, to crowd in private capital. Africa needs innovative financial instruments that are scalable, adequate and affordable.
In addition, the commitment pushes for the expansion of local currency bond markets and guarantees to reduce Africa’s exposure to exchange rate risks. This priority has been championed through policy advisory and capacity-building with African finance ministries, central banks and sub-regional development banks.
Crucially, the Sevilla text recognizes that investment must be inclusive: “…we will promote entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship, particularly among women and youth, and facilitate the growth of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).”
Addressing the Debt and Development Crisis
Africa’s debt burdens have deepened amid cascading shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate impacts, and geopolitical instability. Currently, African countries are paying interest rates five times higher than wealthier nations on comparable bonds. In 2023 alone, private creditors extracted $33.4 billion more than they disbursed to low- and lower-middle-income countries.
The Sevilla Commitment is clear; the current debt architecture is failing the most vulnerable. It commits to “launch an ambitious package of reforms and actions to close this financing gap with urgency, and catalyze sustainable development investments at scale”, including concrete measures to address unsustainable debt.
The document rightly places the responsibility for development first on national leadership – “each country has primary responsibility for its own economic and social development” – but underscores that an enabling international system is essential. Measures like the African Union Agenda 2063 seek to strengthen Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs) to align with national development plans like climate plans and social protection strategies.
At the same time, Sevilla advances the long-sought push for more equitable debt treatments, enhanced access to concessional finance, and stronger crisis response mechanisms. It supports actions to “address the debt challenges of developing countries and lower the cost of capital,” while urging international creditors to coordinate fair and transparent debt restructuring.
The renewed commitment to tackling illicit financial flows which drains more than a third of all money invested in Africa each year is also a powerful reinforcement. Financial experts agree that a new version of the HIPC Initiative is required to adequately assist 22 African countries either in or at high risk of debt distress.
Reforming the International Financial Architecture
The third pillar of Sevilla’s vision is systemic reform, an area where Africa’s collective voice has gained new traction after years of advocacy by African policymakers and institutions to have greater representation in global economic decision-making. AfriCatalyst has been part of this conversation, convening African voices to engage with Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs), multilateral lenders, think tanks and policy forums.
To better reflect today’s realities, the Sevilla Commitment endorses the push for a fairer tax system that works for developing countries. It explicitly supports negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, aiming to close loopholes that cost African countries an estimated $88.6 billion a year in illicit financial outflows.
“We resolve to strengthen the voice and representation of developing countries in the international tax architecture. We invite IFIs, MDBs and international organizations to consider the use of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI) to inform their development cooperation policies and practices,” the document states.
Beyond taxation, the document advances the call for a fairer global debt architecture, stronger multilateral development banks, and an inclusive system to address countries’ vulnerabilities beyond GDP alone.
A Moment for Africa’s Ambition
The Sevilla Commitment is not an end in itself, but rather a renewed mandate for action. Delivering its promise will depend on political will, bold implementation and the active engagement of both Global and African institutions, civil society, and the private sector.
AfriCatalyst remains committed to driving this momentum and stands ready to help African governments translate Sevilla’s principles into tangible results. Unlocking capital at scale, tackling unsustainable debt, and making the global financial system truly fit for purpose in the 21st Century remains imperative to build the resilient, prosperous Africa.
