The CARO Center, along with Sarah Ellington, a partner at Watson Farley & Williams and a United Kingdom board member of the “Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers”, and Lauren Satill, an associate at Watson Farley & Williams, participated in the Sustainable Financing Forum organized by the United Nations, which took place in Seville, Spain, from June 30 to July 4, 2025: https://www.un.org/ffd4

This exceptional event brought together leaders and representatives of states, funders, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and, more generally, decision-makers in the field of development financing over four days.

This event marked the culmination of discussions initiated 10 years ago and commitments made in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of 2015, followed by the Monterrey Consensus of 2002, the Doha Declaration of 2008, and the relevant commitments stated in the Pact for the Future. The aim of these meetings was to find concrete solutions and pathways to resolve the debt crisis and enhance the impact of development financing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The adoption of the “Seville Compromise”, which will be submitted to the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly and concludes these four days of reflection, demonstrates the dynamism and effectiveness of multilateral action in addressing global issues, particularly in the fight against poverty and the protection of human rights: https://docs.un.org/fr/A/CONF.227/2025/L.1

The event began with a plenary session between heads of state and representatives of multilateral funders, and in the afternoon facilitated a meeting between President Emmanuel Macron and the Prime Minister of Barbados, Her Excellency Mia Mottley, to discuss transforming the current system of financing infrastructure projects (see event description attached).

Every day, around forty events were organized in parallel to share and confront viewpoints on the performance of development financing within the pursuit of sustainable development goals, particularly on themes such as mobilizing domestic resources; promoting “blended” financing (public and private); encouraging the development of private business activities; international cooperation for effective aid; support for developing international trade; debt sustainability; and more generally reforming the international financial architecture.

The CARO Center notably attended the following events, detailed in the attachment:

• From Paris to Seville, involving international organizations based in Paris (ICC; OECD; AFD; OCB; UNESCO; IEA and the International Organization of the Francophonie) and commitments made to accelerate the pursuit of the United Nations' 2030 agenda;
• Coalition for Levers of Solidarity: financing development through taxation (France; Kenya; mission for global solidarity levers led by Laurence Toubana)
• A public ecosystem for development banks, climate finance, and the right to development (chaired by the Canada Research Chair in Public Project Finance at McMaster University, Canada)
• Redefining the global financial architecture: the importance of public development banks in mobilizing private financing (French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry)
• Development finance and human rights: a post-Seville agenda (ECOSOC, Human Rights Watch, Tax Justice Network, Human Rights Watch)
• Amplifying African voices: advancing sustainable development through sustainable solutions (Oxfam, ECOSOC, African Union)
• Financing and the right to development: the challenges of human rights in the context of private financing of sustainable development (Global Policy Forum; University of Antwerp; University of Warwick: Third World Network)
• Multi-stakeholder roundtable no. 6: reforming the international financial architecture and addressing systemic issues
• Working in cooperation to ensure impact (European Investment Bank; African Development Bank; Inter-American Development Bank)
• Mobilizing climate financing for green growth: a guarantee for accelerating the SDGs for the Congo Basin countries (Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo; Republic of Gabon; Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI)).

The CARO Center contributed to these discussions by highlighting the critical importance of legal security in development financing. The CARO Center emphasized:

• The importance of accompanying these financings with dispute prevention mechanisms, such as project mediation, mediation, or the Dispute Management Committee. The latter instrument, specifically designed for managing disputes on infrastructure projects, offers a unique approach, integrating into its mission not only commercial disputes but also the monitoring of the project's environmental and social impact;
• The role played by arbitration, a secure mechanism for resolving disputes on major infrastructure projects, which allows, in case of difficulty, access to reparations, thus reinforcing the reliability of the financing.

This inclusive approach and integration of the pursuit of sustainable development goals within the operation of the CARO Center and the services it offers have facilitated crucial dialogues for the project's future, towards the increasingly systematic use of the Center's services by international funders. It also highlighted synergies between the CARO Center's actions and the regional legal integration and promotion of alternative dispute resolution methods promoted by the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa, whose activities are also highly relevant in enhancing the impact of development financing in Africa. Finally, the joint participation of the CARO Center and representatives of the “GAIL” organization further strengthened the partnership between these two entities, which work for the growing consideration of sustainable development impact in dispute prevention and resolution mechanisms.