Video Message
Excellencies,
Distinguished Participants,
It is an honour to address you.
I commend the Islamic Development Bank for its vital contributions in supporting sustainable development in Member Countries, and for Muslim communities globally.
In a few weeks, world leaders will convene at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Sevilla, Spain, to adopt a renewed global financing framework for sustainable development. The Conference occurs amidst a challenging global landscape – where the very essence of multilateralism is under scrutiny.
The world economy is decelerating, shadowed by significant downside risks, particularly if trade tensions escalate. Compounding this, donors are retreating from aid commitments. This is exacerbating a sustainable development crisis, while Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are alarmingly off track.
Financing deficiencies are central to this crisis. The SDG financing gap is substantial and widening – now estimated at over 4 trillion US dollars annually.
Sevilla presents an opportunity to take decisive action to close this financing gap and to deliver a large scale, impact-focused investment push for the SDGs. Success in Sevilla will demonstrate our collective capacity to solve global challenges with solidarity. It will reaffirm the efficacy of multilateralism.
Excellencies,
Institutions like yours are indispensable to this investment push. The Islamic Development Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have been a vital lifeline to countries during crises in recent years; they are also the most powerful lever for mobilizing development financing at scale in this current, fiscally-constrained environment.
The draft outcome document for FfD4, currently under negotiation, includes ambitious commitments to support ongoing MDB reforms to enhance the scale and impact of your operations. Member States are considering an ambitious target: tripling MDB lending capacity by 2035, operationalizing the rechannelling of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) through MDBs, and strengthening the entire system of public development banks.
I urge you to lend your support to the ambitious outcomes at FFD4, which would reaffirm the international community’s commitment to MDBs as a central, critically important part of the development financing architecture.
I also cordially invite you to join us in person in Sevilla, to demonstrate your support for our shared agenda.
I wish you fruitful meetings. And I look forward to continuing strengthening our cooperation.
Thank you.