For immediate release
8 July 2025
Seville, Spain — As the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) closes, the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and its members who participated in the conference expressed frustrations over the results and overall process of FfD4 in Seville, Spain.
Cham Perez, executive director of the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), an APWLD member organisation based in the Philippines, laments how the FfD4 was designed to marginalise the voices of civil society systematically.
She notes how the participation at the FfD4 seemed like clearing hurdle after hurdle in a shrinking space, “From lacking funding support for grassroots representatives from the Global South, accreditation and visa issues and restricted access to and participation in key negotiation spaces, the FfD4 simply mirrored the prevailing global political and economic imbalance. We endured extreme heat and opaque procedure, but most critically, we were denied real participation.”
For the past few days, the civil society faced restrictive security protocols implemented at the conference–from restricting access to key spaces, prohibiting use of any materials with calls or slogans in laptop stickers and fans, to imposing the campaign calls that can be used in the mobilisation–making the FfD4 one of the most restrictive advocacy spaces for many, including the media.
“They made it difficult for us to assert and create spaces for civil society, especially for women and feminist movements from the Global South. We were sidelined and silenced, left with practically no room for meaningful participation. FfD4 preaches development but reeks of privilege and repression,” Cham adds.
Eni Lestari, chairperson of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA), also criticises the official outcome document, the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’.
“The document denies the historical fact of how and why many countries in Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America are poor–our land, resources and people have been plundered for generations. The document and the FfD process deliberately betrayed and failed us,” Eni explains.
Two weeks before the conference, the FfD4 outcome document was negotiated and adopted at the 2nd session of the 4th Preparatory Committee in New York.
APWLD, on the other hand, raised concerns about the document’s lack of accountability. “We cannot accept a text without ambition and accountable actions, a text that does not acknowledge the systemic perpetrators of our historical oppression, and a text that is silent on the wars and genocide against peoples. The FfD4 Outcome Document in its current form is lost in ambition, damaged in accountability, and only further instrumentalised women’s human rights and gender justice,” APWLD said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Misun Woo, regional coordinator of APWLD, emphasises that while FfD may have ultimately yielded more losses than gains, the civil society and mass movements in the Global South must press on.
“We commit to continue building cross-regional, cross-movement alliances, challenging unfair and exclusionary processes within the United Nations and outside. At the end of the day, we engage not because the system is fair, but because we know what’s at stake if we abandon the space altogether,” Misun concludes.
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