As I took part in the rich conversations going on in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the First Session of the Preparatory Committee for next year’s 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) has just finished, I was often reminded of the 3rd International Conference on FfD that took place in the same city in 2015 and which produced the well-known Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

There has been some progress toward achieving that Agenda, including its central aims of aligning financing flows and policies with economic, social, and environmental priorities, and mobilizing domestic financial resources and private investors. Yet frequently heard in discussions this past week were phrases like “disappointing outcomes,” “sober assessment,” “regrettably,” “serious consequences of inaction,” and “a great lack of trust.” 

What caused these frustrations? And what is needed to find lasting solutions to financial challenges such as corruption, illicit financial flows, tax evasion, and so many others, which ultimately contribute to growing poverty and widening gaps between the rich and the poor? 

In considering this question, I found myself thinking of the statement that the Baha’i International Community released for the 3rd International Conference, titled “Take No Pride in Gold and Silver: A relationship lens on financing for development.”As part of the need for political commitment and will, I felt the necessity to invite all who are concerned within FfD to re-examine three interrelated points in the statement, from the perspective of attitudinal transformation rather than that of just structural change.  

First, local communities as agents of change: According to the statement, unless the focal point of sustainability is located within communities, no amount of external resources will lead to success. As a diplomat from China reiterated the point this past week: “all countries should start from the wellbeing of the people, development should be by the people for the people.” Undermining the potential of the people, and depriving their participation, is a formula for disaster. Enlightened leaders who put the people the center of their development planning and execution are extolled in the Bahá'í holy writing in this way: “To them, if every individual citizen has affluence and ease, the royal coffers are full. They take no pride in gold and silver, but rather in their enlightenment and their determination to achieve the universal good.”

Second, letting the fundamental principle of the oneness of humanity govern all our relationships: To this end, it is critical to understand the principle of interconnectedness and trust in the great potential latent in individuals and communities. According to the 2015 BIC statement, “Under current conditions, the majority of the world’s people live in societies in which relationships of dominance prevail—domination of one nation, one race, one tribe, one social class, one religious group, or one sex over another. Within such a framework, financing for development has the potential to either entrench relationships of power and domination or transform them into those of mutuality and cooperation. It can contribute to development to the extent that it facilitates a process of empowering all people to make their rightful contribution to the advancement of society”. The flow of trust between people, in this view, is as important as the flow of funds.

The process of empowering all people should include investment in gender equality.  This point was reiterated in particularly memorable fashion by a diplomat from Norway who attributed her country’s  progress not to the possession of oil but investment in gender equality. As also clearly stated by Mr. Robert Powell, Special Representative of the International Monetary Fund to the United Nations, “economically empowering women is the key” to any progress in a sustainable financing for development. “Gender lens financing is critical’’ because, according to Ms. Boitumelo Mosako, Chief Executive Officer of Development Bank of South Africa , “women always win”.  

Third, the moral and ethical aspects that should animate our effort: The BIC statement reiterates its belief that “development efforts will only be transformative and sustainable if change occurs at the level of culture—in the ethical, moral and spiritual domain of individual and collective life. What people at all levels of society choose to do is as important as what they are able to do, and that decision is more profound than finance alone. Development, after all, is not only about the capacity to achieve certain goals, but also about the values that motivate individuals to choose [a] constructive, and often the more challenging, but more productive, course of action.” 

The absence from the current discussion, as in the past one, of “concepts such as ethics, values, trust, duty, honesty, and justice, robs the discourse of a critical dimension. Are these not the capacities that, when present in individuals, in communities, and in private and public institutions, will prompt action to advance the well-being of society?” The limited progress made over the past nine years suggests how critical trust is to our systems and institutions. Dare we delay any longer in ensuring that we are governed by the ethical values needed for FfD aspirations to be realized? How long will we be waiting to make sure that we are all governed by the ethical values highly needed for all FfD aspirations to be realized?

And so I make the same call issued earlier by the Baha’i International Community itself. I urge all those involved in deliberations around FfD to give earnest consideration to the equally important, yet difficult-to-measure dimensions that pertain to ethical, moral, and spiritual qualities; in short, the integrity and the very foundation of our collective enterprise.

Solomon Belay Faris  is the Representative of the Baha’i International Community’s Regional Office in Addis Ababa