As the 2030 Agenda enters its concluding implementation years, the spokesperson stressed at the annual joint meeting of the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) and the Economic and Social Council held on the same day that all parties must translate commitments to close the sustainable development financing gap and ease heavy debt pressure into tangible outcomes.
The session was themed “Closing the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Financing Gap amid Global Economic Shifts: Innovative Finance to Accelerate SDG Action”. Suela Janina (Albania), Chair of the Second Committee, delivered a keynote speech on this topic and noted that current challenges stretch beyond the separate mandates of the two bodies.
She called for continued intergovernmental deliberations on finance and development, covering the operation of the international financial system, external debt sustainability management, investment arrangements, international tax cooperation and the governance of illicit financial flows.
Many developing countries are grappling with substantial financing shortfalls and shrinking fiscal room, while investment demands for food security, social protection, education, healthcare, digital upgrading and climate resilience keep rising. She struck an optimistic note: despite persistent hardships, promising innovations and new partnerships have emerged, and there is growing consensus that targeted investment can deliver transformative, long-lasting development results. Joint coordination between the Committee and the Council can foster greater coherence within the UN system, eliminate duplicate work and amplify overall impact.
Mounting Debt Pressures Undermine Development Progress
Amar Bendjama, President of the Economic and Social Council, stated that progress under the SDGs demonstrates both what is achievable and the scale of challenges ahead. Estimates put the annual sustainable development financing gap for developing countries at USD 4 trillion.
According to the *Sustainable Development Financing Report 2026*, debt service payments by developing countries hit a 20-year high in 2024. Net interest payments on public debt reached nearly USD 1 trillion in 2025, almost triple the 2010 level.
He argued that this is not merely a financial issue but a fundamental development challenge. He called for strengthened debt management capacity, enhanced transparency, responsible lending and borrowing, wider application of debt-for-development swaps and improved access to concessional financing.
Reviewing progress under the Seville Commitment, including the launch of the Borrower Platform, he warned that resources needed for sustainable development do exist, yet they fail to reach countries and communities at the required scale, speed and affordability. The Seville Commitment must move from paper to action.
The first panel discussion was titled “Expanding Fiscal Space amid Global Shocks and Crises”. Speakers and member states explored actionable measures to advance the implementation of the Seville Commitment within this complex context.
Innovative Debt Standstill Clauses Offer Relief during Global Shocks
Nancy Lee, Director and Senior Fellow for Sustainable Development Finance at the Center for Global Development, proposed broadly applicable debt service standstill clauses to be embedded in contracts with public and private creditors, delivering automatic, large-scale relief for low-income and vulnerable economies. She outlined three overlapping high-risk trends: supply disruptions and price volatility triggered by conflicts in the Middle East, rising interest rates paired with elevated inflation expectations, and the reckoning for risky, unsustainable fiscal and debt policies adopted by high-income nations. Against this backdrop, she advocated improved debt restructuring frameworks, refined debt sustainability analyses and positive net financial flows from international financial institutions.
This proposal is designed as a temporary debt service suspension mechanism applicable to major shocks with material macroeconomic repercussions. The clauses can be replicated easily across debt contracts, delivering predictable, rapid and substantial relief to borrowers while engaging major creditors without triggering default events.
She further explained the triggering logic: once a shock crosses an impact threshold, its origin becomes irrelevant, whether climate-related or otherwise. Citing Hurricane Melissa and the resulting GDP damage in Jamaica, she calculated that a pause on repayments for all eurobonds and multilateral bank debts would free up USD 1.1 billion in temporary liquidity. The mechanism would not trigger a default ruling and would instead reduce default risks.
Spillover Effects from Financial Markets Compound Strains on Developing Countries
Rabah Arezki, Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, pointed out that developing countries and their international partners face growing obstacles in securing long-term development finance while confronting repeated, complex shocks.
Disaster losses are normally assessed through direct physical, economic and humanitarian harm, yet secondary effects from financial market reactions are often overlooked. Shocks tend to raise borrowing costs precisely when governments need to scale up emergency funding. He recommended prearranged, rapidly deployable financing instruments including well-designed contingent credit and debt standstills, investment in domestic systems to convert finance into effective responses, and efforts to make these improvements visible to investors.
David Rogovic, Senior Vice President for Sovereign and Subsovereign Risk at Moody’s Ratings, commented that in the agency’s analytical framework, debt standstill clauses serve as liquidity management tools rather than solutions for solvency crises. As long as such clauses are embedded in original debt contracts and activated in line with their stipulated terms, standstills do not constitute default. Under such circumstances, governments uphold their original contractual commitments without breach.
In the ensuing debate, an EU observer stated that the EU and its member states provide nearly half of all official development assistance globally, while urging more practical and innovative financing modalities.
Small Island Nations Call for Fairer Access to Finance
Speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, the representative of Palau emphasized that the core difficulty lies not only in the availability of capital but in increasingly restrictive access conditions. She urged a more responsive, development-oriented international debt architecture with timely debt restructuring, expanded concessional finance and debt instruments tailored for climate resilience.
The Fiji representative, speaking for Pacific small island developing States, noted that funding gaps are not abstract statistics for the region: they translate into schools that cannot be rebuilt after cyclones. He advocated using the multidimensional vulnerability index to determine concessional financing eligibility and advancing a fairer sovereign debt system that prioritizes disaster-prone small island developing States.
The second panel was entitled “Building Resilience and Accelerating SDG Progress: Finance for Food Systems, Gender-Responsive Finance and Digital Transformation”. Panelists included Abigail Perry, Global Lead for Nutrition at the World Bank; Robin Oates, Sustainable Finance Lead at UN-Women; and Lois Blue, Vice President, Public-Private Partnerships at Mastercard.