Background

With just 17% of the SDGs on track, the UN Secretary General has emphasized that “the SDGs need a global rescue plan,” highlighting reform of the international financial architecture as a “game-changer in accelerating SDG progress.” The global financing gap for the SDGs is estimated at more than $4 trillion, while the cost of delivering the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement is around $5.8 trillion by 2030.

As we mark the 80th anniversary of the United Nations, it is important to recall that the Financing for Development agenda was born in Mexico in 2002 with the first International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey. That historic gathering established a global milestone to mobilize resources for development, laying the foundation for two decades of dialogue and cooperation. Today, this agenda has reached a new milestone with the adoption of the Sevilla Commitment at FfD4 in 2025, which together with the Sevilla Platform for Action, provide a renewed global framework for financing sustainable development. They embody a new consensus: that advancing the 2030 Agenda requires a just, inclusive and effective financial system that aligns all flows—public and private, domestic and international—with sustainable development.

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is demonstrating that meaningful progress toward inclusive and sustainable development is possible. Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty in recent years, and governments are strengthening social protection, investing in wellbeing, and expanding opportunities for all. The region has also become a global steward of nature, home to 40% of the world’s biodiversity and vast natural resources that, if managed responsibly, can underpin a new development model rooted in resilience and inclusion.

The challenge ahead is to consolidate these advances while preparing for future risks, including those posed by climate change and external shocks. This requires mobilizing financing at scale, but in ways that safeguard debt sustainability and ensure that progress today does not come at the expense of future generations. By strengthening national financial ecosystems and deploying innovative instruments, countries in the region can secure the resources needed to sustain social gains, drive economic transformation, and protect the environment.

LAC has both the assets and the vision to lead by example. By aligning finance with the Sustainable Development Goals and placing social wellbeing at the center, the region can pioneer resilient development pathways that show the world it is possible to combine prosperity, equity, and sustainability.

The Sevilla Commitment marks a turning point by embedding equity, resilience, green growth and justice at the center of the financing agenda. It calls for reforms to international financial institutions, enhanced voice and representation for developing countries, progressive taxation and fiscal policies, innovative instruments, and investments in social protection, gender equality and the care economy. It also stresses that biodiversity and climate action are integral to financing strategies, not parallel agendas.

For the LAC region, implementing the Sevilla Commitment means tackling long-standing vulnerabilities, recognizing new risks while unlocking new opportunities. This includes addressing high debt burdens, improving access to affordable financing, strengthening national development banks, and reinforcing fiscal systems through transparency, accountability and progressivity. It also means leveraging private finance to contribute more effectively to sustainable development and to respond to regional priorities, from infrastructure gaps to inclusive industrialization and the protection of natural resources.

The Sevilla Platform is not just a declaration but an operational agenda. It includes commitments to make domestic fiscal capacity more efficient, reform international tax cooperation, mobilize concessional finance, scale up blended and innovative financing, and integrate climate and biodiversity considerations into financial strategies. It also emphasizes monitoring, accountability, and regional cooperation as essential to ensure implementation.

Within this broader agenda, Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs) represent a practical approach to translate national development priorities into financing strategies. INFFs were introduced in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and reaffirmed in the Compromiso de Sevilla and in various initiatives under the Sevilla Platform for Action. Country-led INFFs enable governments to articulate comprehensive financing strategies to finance and implement their sustainable development priorities, reflected in National Development Plans and related strategies. INFFs also provide a catalyst to align public budgets, fiscal reforms, and private investment with development priorities and environmental commitments to address issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and waste. While not an end in themselves, INFFs exemplify how countries can operationalize the principle of country ownership embedded in the Sevilla Commitment.

Climate finance is a decisive challenge and opportunity for the region. Although climate finance is addressed within other international processes, Sevilla called for scaling up financing for adaptation, mitigation, biodiversity and disaster risk reduction, including through the swift implementation of the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance, the Loss and Damage Fund, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

For LAC, preparing ambitious and credible financing strategies is essential ahead of COP30 in Brazil. This requires de-risking private capital for green investments, strengthening fiscal policies that integrate climate and biodiversity, and ensuring that climate finance is accessible, predictable, and aligned with national priorities

The Regional Exchange will be hosted in Mexico City by the Government of Mexico with support from, UNDP and the INFF Facility. This will build on Mexico’s role as co-facilitator to the FFD4 outcome document and leadership in country-led financing strategies and country platforms.

This two-day event will bring together government representatives from the Latin America and Caribbean region and partners to exchange and deepen collaboration for the implementation of the Sevilla Commitment, including through novel tools and strategies such as thematic bonds, financing for care infrastructure and gender equality, and leveraging country-led INFFs and sustainable finance strategies beyond 2025. The event will serve as a forum to promote dialogue among stakeholders involved in the region's development finance processes, establish partnerships with private sector actors to finance initiatives, promote knowledge exchange, and build momentum to deliver on the FFD4 commitments among the states of the Latin American and Caribbean region.

Objectives

• Reflect on the results of FFD4 and the adoption of the Sevilla Commitment for the Latin America and the Caribbean region.
• Analyse the role and priorities of Latin American and Caribbean states in implementing FFD4 commitments, including those included in the Sevilla Platform for Action, in light of the region's specific barriers and opportunities, including fiscal reforms, debt sustainability, innovative finance, biodiversity and climate action, and gender equality.
• Deepen collaboration among governments, international partners, development banks, private sector and civil society to scale up sustainable finance aligned with the Sevilla agenda.
• Strengthen countries’ financing strategies, platforms and partnerships in support of more ambitious climate and biodiversity commitments and enhancing national capacities to deliver, as they prepare for COP30 in Brazil.
• Exchange best practices in the LAC region in the areas of financing diagnostics and strategies, taxation, progressive public spending, investment for sustainable development, thematic debt, debt sustainability, leveraging and alignment of public and private financing for sustainable development priorities, among others.

Target participants

• Government representatives (especially from Ministries of Finance and Economy, as well as Foreign Affairs)
• Development partners, including INFF Facility partners
• International financial institutions
• National development banks
• Private sector representatives (e.g. impact investors and banks)
• Civil society organizations

The format will be an interactive exchange combining a mixture of panel discussions and roundtables. Around 80 participants are expected.

Key information

Date:
27-28 October 2025

Host:
Government of Mexico (Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Location:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico City (Plaza Juárez 20, Col. Centro Zona 1, Del. Cuauhtémoc, CDMX)

Language:
The meeting will take place in Spanish with translation into English and vice-versa.

Registration:
Registration for in-person participation (invite only)
Registration to attend online (livestream via Zoom Webinar)