Marking 80 years since the founding of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, this workshop explored how International Financial Institutions (IFIs) can evolve to meet today’s complex global challenges—and how closer coordination with the UN system can drive progress on sustainable development.
Co-hosted by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung’s New York and DC offices, the session brought together IFIs, Member States, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), UN officials and experts to identify ways to deepen dialogue and forge more effective partnerships in the lead-up to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Spain.
UNU-CPR’s Dr. Michael Franczak moderated two expert panels and presented insights from his research paper Foundations for a Multilateral Sovereign Debt Mechanism (forthcoming), developed under the Centre’s Global Governance Innovation Platform. His remarks highlighted the need for an internationally coordinated sovereign debt resolution architecture and emphasized proposals outlined in recent FfD4 negotiations.
Discussions also focused on debt sustainability, including the evolving role of the Global Debt Roundtable and its proposed new restructuring playbook, and integrated partnerships between the UN, IFIs and MDBs to unlock financing for the Sustainable Development Goals and strengthen multilateral development cooperation.
