Ensuring persons with disabilities are included in Financing for Development (FfD) is critical to ensure that resources are allocated for inclusion. Financing of the SDGs is a key and central theme to current global sustainable development. It is particularly relevant at local and national levels in the areas of inclusive education, ensuring healthy lives, water and sanitation for all, gender equality, climate change, inclusive cities, among other areas.
The annual ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development (FfD Forum) is an inter-governmental process with universal participation mandated to review the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, another financing for development outcomes and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The FfD Forum results in inter-governmentally agreed conclusions and recommendations that are fed into the overall follow-up and review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The FfD process is important and unique as it is open-ended, unlike the 2030 Agenda that ends in 2030. Moreover, the FfD Forum is not purely a UN meeting, but also includes non-UN entities, including the Bretton Woods institutions, WTO and UNCTAD indicating a shared space for collaboration with UN and non-UN organizations and institutions.
An integral part of the FfD Forum is the Inter-Agency Task Force on Financing for Development (IATF) that follows up on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and is comprised of over 50 United Nations agencies, programs and offices, regional economic commissions, and other relevant international institutions and:
- reports annually on progress in implementing the Addis Agenda and other Financing for Development outcomes and the means of implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and
- advises the intergovernmental follow-up process on progress, implementation gaps and recommendations for corrective action.