Prepared by Kabita Gautam at the First High-Level Follow-up Dialogue on Financing for Development in Asia and Pacific. 

BYND2015 Nepal Hub, Nepal

Thank you, Chair!

Representing the one third of the youth population in the region, I am speaking on behalf of civil society, one of the catalysts for development towards sustainability.
We, the civil society, recognize financing is the backbone for development that should be more development centric under the sustainable development framework, which supports and enhance the livelihood of community people from rural to urban, mountains to oceans, which must be more inclusive, multidimensional and multisector perspectives with holistic approach, rather being just an example of business models to raise economy.

We admit there is lack of financial literacy and education at local to national level, due to the missing link between the interests of investment among different stakeholders including active participation of CSOs. This needs more research and need based assessments to identify sustainable financing models to support and strengthen the national municipal capacity for implementation, monitoring and data collection.

We urge that the financing framework/model/structure should ensure the corruption free environment, environmental and climate security, insurance of political risk with analysis, evaluation and national priority basis.

We observed the dialogue highlighted on long term investment, regional and international cooperation, capacity building, revenues from different sectors, progressive as well as accountable tax system, calibration of technological and human resource capacities, correlation between finance, trade and tax, use of technology, reducing illicit financial flows, need of co-financing and micro investment environment; but it didn’t highlight on the best practices on monitoring the tax system, financial flow modality for developmental uses, modality for equitable taxation for poverty reduction and the not much discussed topic on Fiduciary risk and Financial Leakage that enables Corruption in most of the developing countries in the region.

We also observed the reflection on the need of documentation of the economy, tracking individual investment, financial training for youth, establishment of data centers, impact investment and so on. While, it is equally important to concentrate on e-commerce, stock/share markets, trade and market linkages; tax administration regulation, participatory mechanism to ensure the transparency and accountability, where CSOs have important roles.

We realized the overall discussion fails to address the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that plays vital role in mobilizing financial resources for long-term profits through positive public relations, high ethical standards to reduce business and legal risk, and shareholder trust by taking responsibility for corporate actions, that ensures positive impact on the environment and stakeholders including consumers, employees, investors and communities.

We envision shifting investment to sustainable city/village models with advancement and integration of skill based technology transfer, along with promotion of Renewables, Eco-Tourism, Clean Transportation, Green-Climate Resilient and Disaster Risk Reduction focused Infrastructure would be worth while creating platforms for innovation, new opportunities, new jobs for this and coming generation, where the world strives for employment and the countries depends more on remittances.
In the end all drivers of development financing which include- International Financial Institutions, Private Sector Operations, state and non-state financial agencies should all be transparent and be held accountable to ensure that those impacted will be duly addressed and justifiably compensated.

We recommend focusing on divestment, while making investment in infrastructure to secure future scenarios and impacts that affect entire ecosystem, biodiversity and land use patterns. We would also suggest that environmental and social assessment and safeguarding is given fundamental priority before Infrastructure Projects are approved.  We should not forget financing development is not just about us, the humans but the entire components that balance the earth system.

Last but not the least, we look towards the future follow ups, to see more Civil Societies and other groups like indigenous and local community representatives in such dialogues, securing space to share the best practices; either they are women who run cooperatives supporting small scale projects in community or the young people who are social entrepreneurs, yet struggling in need of platforms to showcase their investment in terms of human resource, moving towards more sustainable future.

Thank You!