"Sustainable Development Goals are dramatically off track" - UN Chief at ECOSOC FfD Forum 2025

Remarks by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, at the 2025 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development Follow-Up (FfD Forum). With five years remaining to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), Secretary-General António Guterres said, “we cannot let our financing for development ambitions get swept away,” urging countries to “making good on the commitments” made in the Pact for the Future last September. Opening a financing for development forum ahead of the July 4th International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, the President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) meeting Bob Rae said, “trade is not a four letter word.” Rae said, “trade is a positive way for countries to exchange goods and services, and to be able to emerge from poverty themselves. We need to reinforce the importance of reducing barriers to trade rather than increasing barriers to trade. To think that trade is a win-lose proposition, that some countries win from trade and other countries lose, or to think that there is a simple national solution to the problem of international trade, is simply wrong.” Guterres, told the forum that “we face some harsh truths; the harsh truth of donors pulling the plug on aid commitments and delivery at historic speed and scale; the harsh truth of trade barriers being erected at a dizzying pace; the harsh truth that the Sustainable Development Goals are dramatically off track, exacerbated by an annual financing gap of an estimated for 3 billion US dollars; and the harsh truth of prohibitively high borrowing costs that are draining away public investments in everything from education and health systems, to social protection infrastructure, and the energy transition.” He said, “from a necessary stimulus to help countries invest in their people, to vital and long awaited reforms to the global financial architecture, to the Pact’s clear commitments to open, fair and rules-based trade, to its call for an analysis of the impact of military expenditures on the achievement of the SDGs - with the final report out by September - to the Pact's urging for an ambitious outcome to July's Conference on Financing for Development.” The Secretary-General said, “in many developing countries, gains are getting crushed under the weight of debt services siphoning away investments in education and infrastructure. And the problem is getting worse.” He said, “the Sevilla Conference should emerge with a commitment by member states to lower the cost of borrowing, improve debt restructuring, and prevent crisis from taking goals. And this includes establishing a dedicated facility to help developing countries manage their liabilities and then has liquidity in times of crisis.” Talking to reporters after the meeting, Rae said, “every capital of an advanced economy that is normally a donor is having a debate about what can they do? What can we do? But there's no one country that can substitute for the efforts that the United States has been making over the last 80 years.” He said, “we can't wait for the United States to make up its mind as to what kind of a player it wants to be in the world. We have an obligation ourselves. Each one of our governments has an obligation to say, what are we going to do to make sure that the public good is not totally forgotten, and that the wellbeing of the world is not forgotten, and that our common security is not forgotten?” The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) will be held in Sevilla, Spain, from June 30 to July 3, 2025. The conference will focus on financing for sustainable development and will be held at the FIBES Sevilla Exhibition and Conference Centre.


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