Financing for Development Office
The Financing for Development Office (FfDO) was established within the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations Secretariat on 24 January 2003 in accordance with General Assembly resolution 57/273. The distinctive function of the FfDO is to provide effective substantive secretariat support for sustained follow-up within the United Nations to the agreements and commitments reached at the International Conferences on Financing for Development, as contained in the 2002 Monterrey Consensus and the 2008 Doha Declaration on Financing for Development, and financing for development-related aspects of the outcomes of major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic and social fields, including the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, as well as the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015.
The principal mission of the Office is to promote and support an integrated, cross-cutting and holistic nature of the FfD follow-up process. To this end, FfDO serves as a focal point in the United Nations Secretariat for overall follow-up to the implementation of the outcomes of the above-mentioned conferences and summits, provides secretariat support to the intergovernmental process entrusted with the follow-up to the Conferences, supports and facilitates the participation of all stakeholders, follows closely the issues and policies related to international economic, financial and development cooperation, and keeps under review actions taken at all levels in the FfD follow-up process, as well as within the framework of international economic, financial and development cooperation, in general.
FfDO works in close collaboration with the secretariats of the major institutional stakeholders of the FfD process (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the United Nations Development Programme), building on the innovative and participatory modalities and related coordination arrangements utilized in the preparations of the Monterrey Conference and subsequent FfD-related conferences and summits.
Principal directions of FfDO activities are the following:
- Serving as a focal point in the United Nations Secretariat for overall follow-up to the implementation at the national, regional and global levels of the outcomes of the 2002 and 2008 International Conferences on Financing for Development and, in this context, intensifying collaboration and interaction with all relevant stakeholders;
- Promoting policy coherence within the United Nations to issues related to financing for development, for the integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic and social fields, including the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and the framework for the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015;
- Providing substantive secretariat support to the intergovernmental process entrusted with the follow-up to the Monterrey and Doha Conferences on Financing for Development, as well as financing for development aspects of related outcomes, including the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development;
- Organizing, in collaboration with experts from the public and private sectors, including experts on issues related to gender equality, multi-stakeholder activities aimed at better enabling Member States to implement their commitments as agreed upon in the Monterrey Consensus, the Doha Declaration on Financing for Development, including the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015;
- Providing secretariat support to the work of the Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters;
- Providing advisory services and technical assistance to developing countries and countries with economies in transition in the areas of domestic and international resource mobilization for sustainable development, including the area of international tax cooperation.