The Illusion of Consensus: FfD4 and the Fight for Systemic Change

The outcome document of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) was adopted yesterday in a moment that is already being framed as a triumph of multilateralism.

It wasn’t.

The United States walked out. They refused to endorse the outcome and announced they will not participate in Sevilla. That move, while dramatic, is now being used to shield others—EU, UK, Canada, Japan, and others—who played an equal role in gutting ambition, stalling progress, and stripping the process of credibility.

The final document was adopted “by consensus,” but this consensus was manufactured. Civil society has witnessed weeks of backroom negotiations, pressure, and procedural opacity. The transparency that should define international cooperation was absent. The accountability mechanisms civil society fought for were diluted. Calls for real action on debt, climate finance, tax justice, and reform of the global financial architecture were deflected or erased.

This wasn’t a victory. It was damage control.

What really happened

• The Global North bloc resisted every demand that would have shifted power or money toward the Global South.
• The EU and allies worked behind the scenes to weaken the text on systemic issues—especially international tax governance, debt restructuring, and climate justice.
• The US, unable to dilute the document further, chose to walk away. That walkout is now being used to cast the remaining countries as heroes of multilateralism.
• The Global South, especially G77 members, were forced to choose between blocking the document or salvaging the process.

Why this matters

This outcome is not just symbolic. It locks in a status quo that is killing people.

• Debt distress across Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia is rising. A fair multilateral mechanism to restructure debt was again blocked.
• Climate finance remains inadequate, inaccessible, and deeply unjust. No breakthrough was made on new, additional, and predictable public funding.
• Tax justice was sidelined. The momentum for a UN-led tax convention was deliberately undercut, leaving profit-shifting and tax evasion by multinationals intact.

Civil society must speak with clarity

The story being told now—that the world saved multilateralism—is a lie.

Multilateralism was not saved. It was sanitized.

Civil society must refuse this narrative. We need to:

• Expose how Global North countries coordinated to gut ambition while hiding behind diplomatic language
• Center the demands of movements, not donors
• Call out the procedural manipulation that sidelined meaningful participation
• Hold the line on systemic reform—not charity, not soft language

What’s next

Collective Action and expose the injustice, amplify alternatives, and keep the momentum alive.

This is a fight about power. About who sets the rules of the global economy, and who benefits from them.

And we are not done

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shereen Talaat, Director of MENAFem Movement