2025 marks a pivotal moment for the future of global development and cooperation. A decade after the UN Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) set forth a framework for financing sustainable progress, and with just five years remaining until the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) deadline, the world is on the cusp of a renewed vision for financing the future. While challenges remain, this moment is defined by urgency and opportunity, a chance to reshape the financial landscape to foster resilience, innovation, and inclusive growth.
The Global South is central to this transformation, driving bold health, sustainability, and economic initiatives. With fast-growing economies and expertise in crisis resilience, countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia are pioneering investment models, leveraging technology, and strengthening South-South cooperation. However, real and lasting progress requires global collaboration, forging equitable partnerships that promote shared knowledge, joint investment, and sustainable innovation. By working together, we, as global community, need to develop financing structures that not only address immediate challenges but also build long-term resilience, fostering inclusive economic growth, technological advancements and generates social benefits for all.
The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) Conference in Sevilla in June 2025 represents a landmark opportunity to solidify this momentum. Rather than a moment of crisis, it is a moment of action, where leaders from all sectors—governments, the private sector, philanthropy, and multilateral institutions—can work together to unlock new financing mechanisms that align investment flows with global development priorities. A core focus of this effort is health research and innovation, ensuring that financing structures enable the scaling of life-saving medical breakthroughs, pandemic preparedness, and universal healthcare solutions that reach every corner of the world.
Rather than seeing the SDGs as a fading ambition, this is the moment to transform them into an enduring legacy— a foundation for a new era of collaboration, where the global south is not just a participant in shaping global health and development but a leader driving forward a vision of shared progress, sustainability, and human well-being for generations to come.
The global landscape is increasingly shaped by policies and institutions that must adapt to rapid changes, while at the same time, local communities are raising their voices, demanding participation and recognition in decision-making processes. The interconnectedness of our world causes that events in one region have repercussions in others, reinforcing the need for inclusive and collaborative approaches to resilience and development.
Ongoing crises have exposed deeper silos in policymaking. Economic, health, culture, and climate action demonstrate our lack of readiness for the ripple effects that jump from one domain to the next. Even well-conceived programmes can operate alone, be reactive rather than anticipatory, failing to harness local expertise along the way.
This fragmentation calls for a unifying framework that acknowledges the full complexity of global challenges and the heritage of the existing efforts—especially as the mid-decade pivot arrives. Resilience, once seen as a byword for weathering discrete shocks, must become the central organising logic behind how we shape policy, direct investment, and engage communities.
Under collective Resilience, we shift from fragmented, short-term fixes to a cohesive, future-facing plan that harnesses international science and local ingenuity.
At its core, resilience ensures that societies can withstand and adapt to crises while advancing economic and social progress. Whether it be pandemic preparedness, climate shocks, economic instability, or geopolitical disruptions, resilience-focused financing ensures that countries—particularly those in the global south—are not just responding to crises but are structurally empowered to anticipate, absorb, and recover from shocks while sustaining long-term growth and well-being.
Resilience is not only a human challenge but also an ecological necessity. A development model that prioritizes economic growth at the expense of the environment is ultimately self-defeating, as it risks breaching planetary boundaries—critical ecological thresholds that regulate Earth's stability, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and freshwater use.
Exceeding these limits undermines the very ecosystems that sustain human societies, leading to irreversible environmental degradation, resource depletion, and increased vulnerability to global crises such as extreme weather events, food insecurity, and pandemics. Sustainable development must operate within these boundaries to ensure long-term resilience for both human and natural systems.
A diverse coalition comprising experts from the newly launched Lancet Commission on US Societal Resilience in a Global Pandemic Age, former government officials, leaders of the UN Science Summit, and ecological resilience examined existing tools to find common ground that could build on existing frameworks while allowing for expansion and evolution.
What is emerging is a set of core principles and dimensions that offer a potential holistic step forward. We call these the Resilient Community Dimensions (RCD). Rather than overshadowing the SDGs, community resilience frameworks, or Planetary Boundaries, RCDs integrate these and related global initiatives into a dynamic, adaptive system—serving as both an address and a navigation tool that harmonizes global imperatives with local realities.
From the integration of existing knowledge, seven interlinked Resilient Community Dimensions emerge:
1. Environmental Stewardship & Resource Security
2. Social Equity & Well-being
3. Economic Vitality & Diversity
4. Governance & Civic Engagement
5. Infrastructure & Built Environment
6. Cultural Vitality & Heritage
7. Knowledge & Learning
We believe that these principles, dimensions, and transitions offer a new path and grounding for genuine convergence—aligning science-based targets to protect our global commons with implementable roadmaps that promote community resilience
A unique value of the RCD method lies in a dynamic bottom-up ethos, now truly enabled by an intelligent and connected world. Under this framework, local actors—from municipal officials to neighbourhood associations—help define, refine and report on dimensions, verifiable metrics and measurements, bridging scientific models with on-the-ground sensing and insights, evolving a global societal platform with locally usable maps and directions.
For example, a coastal region vulnerable to sea-level rise might prioritise coral stewardship, shoreline restoration and flood defences, while an inland farming community might focus on water efficiency and crop diversification. Such adaptability ensures the framework remains responsive to shifting risks and fosters genuine buy-in among communities, a prerequisite for meaningful change.
We must work in tandem with local knowledge systems, fostering a respectful collaboration that acknowledges traditional ecological wisdom while leveraging technological advancements.
Ultimately, the integration of scientific expertise with indigenous and community-based knowledge can lead to more effective and sustainable solutions, ensuring that development benefits all members of society without compromising future generations.
Science and technology serve as the foundation of resilient societies, offering scalable, sustainable, and accessible solutions to global challenges and ensuring continuous adaptation and progress.
By providing scalable and accessible tools, such as digital infrastructure for remote education, precision agriculture for food security, and climate modeling for disaster preparedness, S&T ensures that resilience is not just a reactive process but an ongoing, strategic approach to societal development. Moreover, by integrating scientific research with policy-making and community engagement, technology-driven resilience promotes equitable solutions, ensuring that all populations benefit from progress.
Additionally, science and technology allow knowledge exchange and learning from Communities that possess rich traditions, innovative solutions, and adaptive strategies that benefit all of us in facing the global socio-economic and environmental challenges. Science and technology enable this global-local connections at an unprecedented scale facilitating the exchange of collective intelligence.
For example, smartphones, the internet of connected things and the blossoming market of mobile tools can empower citizens to report real-time data on air quality or public health access while artificial intelligence processes these inputs into actionable insights. Distributed ledger technology (blockchain, NFTs) can bring transparency to funding flows, building trust in how resources are deployed without central authority managing individual transactions.
As global challenges become more complex, integrating scientific advancements into governance, education, and industry will be crucial for creating societies that are not only reactive to crises but also proactively equipped to navigate uncertainties with agility and robustness.
Policy imperatives alone will not drive transformation without the appropriate financial engine. With crises intensifying and investment communities increasingly aware of systemic risks, the upcoming decadal United Nations Financing for Development (FfD4) 2025 Conference in Seville is a pivotal opportunity. Development banks, institutional investors, and philanthropic organisations recognise that resilience and sustainability are not optional but integral to stable long-term returns.
Innovative financial instruments—resilience bonds, blended finance models, and public-private partnerships—can help bring the RCD framework to life globally. During the conference’s side event on Resilience, the Seville Declaration on Collective Resilience will be introduced, articulating a shared vision and setting up a global task force to guide RCD’s rollout and evolution to support communities living within and protecting our shared planetary boundaries.
This proposal is championed by a broad alliance—medical leaders contending with pandemic realities, former policymakers seasoned by the demands of government, global scientists and climate experts, frontline workers and community advocates of ecological stewardship —underscoring just how interwoven today’s challenges genuinely are.
We invite the public, legislators, executives, investors, and civil society to join this effort. By embedding resilience in every policy and budget line, we can forge a path that weathers the crises at our global doorstep and builds a more equitable, sustainable world. Time is of the essence. As 2025 ushers in a new era of uncertainty and opportunity, let us seize the moment to reimagine how we safeguard and advance our shared future.
A resilience-focused agenda at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in 2025 has the potential to shape the global development landscape for years to come, influencing key international meetings such as UNGA80 in September 2025 and the UN Social Summit in Doha in 2026. By prioritising financial and structural resilience, FfD4 can lay the groundwork for a new era of sustainable, equitable, and inclusive global development financing.
By embedding resilience into development financing frameworks at FfD4, the conference's outcomes can directly inform and influence the policy debates at UNGA80 in September 2025. As world leaders gather for this milestone General Assembly session, the discussions will be shaped by the urgent need to bridge the financing gaps hindering progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
FfD4’s emphasis on resilient financing models can drive commitments at UNGA80 to secure long-term funding for universal health coverage, strengthen pandemic response capacities, and integrate resilience into climate adaptation strategies. The momentum from FfD4 can also catalyze stronger cooperation between multilateral institutions, private sector investors, and development banks, ensuring that financing commitments at UNGA80 translate into concrete actions and implementation strategies.
Looking ahead to the UN Social Summit in Doha in 2026, resilience financing will be critical to shaping discussions on the future of social protection, inclusive economies, and equity-driven policies. The Social Summit will be a defining moment to reimagine global social contracts, and FfD4 can provide the financial blueprints needed to make social protection systems more robust, universal, and adaptable to evolving global challenges. By establishing innovative financing mechanisms at FfD4, such as solidarity levies, global health investment funds, and debt restructuring models, the conference can equip policymakers in Doha with the financial tools necessary to implement social protection reforms that reach marginalized communities, strengthen workforce resilience, and promote inclusive economic opportunities.
Furthermore, FfD4’s resilience focus can influence broader discussions on global governance, South-South and South-North cooperation, and private sector engagement across these future summits. By shifting the global financing paradigm toward long-term sustainability rather than crisis-driven responses, the outcomes of FfD4 can help create a more stable, predictable, and equitable financial architecture that supports nations in achieving lasting development gains well beyond 2030.
Ultimately, FfD4 is a standalone event and a pivotal moment to reshape how global resources are mobilised, distributed, and sustained to ensure resilience across health systems, economies, and social infrastructures. The commitments made in 2025 will echo throughout UNGA80, the Social Summit in Doha, and beyond, ensuring that resilience becomes the foundation for the next phase of global development.
This roadmap builds on the Seville Agenda for Collective Resilience, outlining a structured, five-year strategy that aligns policy, financing, data infrastructure, and innovation to support developing nations, strengthen global cooperation, and shape the post-SDG development agenda.
The roadmap highlights health resilience as a core priority while ensuring a holistic approach that includes economic, environmental, and social dimensions. It incorporates high-level UN initiatives, such as the UNGA Science Summit, the UN Social Summit (2026, Doha), and the post-SDG framework, to create a unified resilience framework.
1. FfD4 Outcome Declaration (July 2025): Adopting the Seville Declaration on Collective Resilience, establishing a global Resilience Task Force.
2. UNGA80 (September 2025): Integration of resilience into global development policies, emphasising cross-border cooperation.
3. Launch of the Resilience Finance Hub (December 2025): A platform for mobilizing blended finance, resilience bonds, and public-private partnerships.
4. UN Social Summit in Doha (March 2026): Introduce Resilience-Driven Social Protection Mechanisms to ensure adaptable and inclusive safety nets.
5. G7 & G20 Summit Engagements (April-May 2026): Pledges from developed nations (EU, US, China, Gulf States) to fund resilience-building programs in developing countries.
Policy Priorities:
♦ Resilience Financing Models: Establish resilience bonds and develop country-specific investment frameworks for resilience-based development.]
♦ Global Data & AI for Resilience: Launch a Global Resilience Data and Computing Infrastructure Initiative to enhance real-time data collection, predictive analytics, and AI-driven policy insights.
♦ South-South Cooperation: Strengthen regional resilience alliances in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, facilitating technology transfer and local capacity-building.
8.2. UNGA81 (September 2026): Adoption of the Global Resilience Accord, integrating resilience metrics into international financing institutions’ funding frameworks.
1. COP32 (November 2026): Alignment of climate adaptation funding with resilience financing mechanisms.
2. Launch of Regional Resilience Innovation Labs (February 2027): Supporting local startups and research institutions in developing resilience solutions.
3. Implementation of AI-Powered Resilience System (June 2027): Facilitating real-time crisis recognition and response mechanisms across borders.
Policy Priorities:
♦ Health Resilience Infrastructure: Expansion of regional health research hubs and pandemic preparedness centers.
♦ Cross-Border Resilience Policies: Strengthen coordination among regional economic communities (EU, AU, ASEAN, Mercosur) to facilitate joint resilience strategies.
♦ Resilience in Trade & Supply Chains: Implement risk-sensitive trade policies to prevent disruptions due to shocks (climate, pandemics, conflicts).
8.3. UNGA82 (September 2027): Resilience becomes a formal agenda item in the post-SDG development framework negotiations.
8.4. Resilience Integration in Multilateral Development Banks (April 2028): Resilience criteria included in IMF, World Bank, and regional bank lending frameworks.
Policy Priorities:
♦ Localizing Resilience Governance: Establishment of National Resilience Councils (NRCs) in developing nations.
♦ Resilient Urban Planning: Expansion of climate-smart infrastructure investments in vulnerable urban centers.
♦ Mainstreaming Resilience Education & Workforce Training: Launch of global educational curricula and vocational training on resilience skills.
1. UNGA83 (September 2028): Endorsement of Resilience-Based Sustainable Development Goals (RB-SDGs) in the UN Post-SDG framework.
2. Expansion of Resilience Investment Funds (March 2029): Scaling up funding for climate resilience, digital infrastructure, and health resilience.
Policy Priorities:
♦ Resilience-Aligned Fiscal Policies: Inclusion of resilience indicators in national budgeting processes.
♦ Decentralized Resilience Planning: Strengthening city and municipal-level resilience frameworks.
2. Global Resilience Review 2030 (March 2030): Assessment of the impact of five years of resilience-focused policies.
Policy Priorities:
♦ Embedding Resilience in All UN Development Frameworks: Transition from crisis response to proactive resilience financing.
♦ Institutionalizing Long-Term Resilience Planning: Adopting resilience-based governance structures in all major international organizations.
♦Strengthening Private Sector Engagement: Encouraging impact investing and blended finance for resilience-building projects.
♦Using AI & Big Data for Resilience Policy: Establishing global AI-driven early warning systems for economic, health, and environmental crises.
♦ Increase resilience financing for developing nations, with a focus on health, climate, and digital infrastructure.
♦ Facilitate resilience technology transfer and innovation hubs in the Global South.
♦ Expand multilateral debt relief for resilience-building programs.
♦ Strengthen local governance for resilience implementation.
♦ Develop national resilience action plans aligned with global frameworks.
♦ Build cross-sectoral partnerships for long-term resilience financing.