The challenge at UN aid conference: Governments cannot paper over the cracks in development funding

At the United Nations summit in Seville, governments cannot simply cover up the shortcomings of a collapsing developing finance system


Joseph Stiglitz Winnie Byanyima
JUL 01, 2025 - 08:44 EDT

World leaders gathered in Seville this week for the U.N.’s International Conference on Financing for Development have an immense challenge before them. The hope originally was to find the additional money needed to reduce poverty, promote growth and fight climate change. Now, the worry is that matters may get even worse than they already are. Aid cuts have thrown critical health and humanitarian work into turmoil, and economic uncertainty and unsustainable debt burdens are draining government budgets. This means there’s no money left to deal with pandemics, violent conflict, and the climate crisis, which in turn could destabilize societies everywhere. No country will be safe.

There is a 20% chance of the world experiencing another pandemic as deadly as COVID-19 within the decade. And now, humanity risks losing control of some of the world’s deadliest epidemics. Treatment disruptions linked to funding cuts have led to several new mpox cases in Malawi. If U.S. funding permanently disappears and is not replaced, there could be an additional six million HIV infections and four million AIDS-related deaths by 2029. Ten million people could acquire tuberculosis, leading to two million deaths.

In Seville, governments cannot simply paper over the cracks of a collapsing developing finance system.

In 2015, at the time of the last U.N. Financing for Development Conference, some rich countries had reached the global target they had set for themselves of contributing 0.7% of their Gross National Income to global development. But a decade has passed, and governments are now turning away from that ambition to focus on defense spending. In 2024, not a single G-7 country approached that goal, and 2025 will be the year of the largest decline ever in aid to developing countries.

https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2025-07-01/the-challenge-at-un-aid-conference-governments-cannot-paper-over-the-cracks-in-development-funding.html