"Working Lunch on Graduation Issues – Exchange with Member States in preparation for the 2018 report of the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development"

The South Centre and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, jointly with the Financing for Development Office of UN DESA, organized a working lunch on 23 January 2018 on the topic "Graduation from Concessional Finance - Exchange with Member States in preparation for the 2018 report of the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development".

Delegates from 17 Member States attended the lunch, along with representatives of several member agencies of the Inter-agency Task Force. The meeting featured a keynote presentation by Annalisa Prizzon from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) on different development graduation processes and their impact on countries’ access to development finance. There were also presentations from the World Bank and the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) Secretariat on graduation processes in the multilateral development banks and from LDC status, respectively (see Annex I for the programme). The OECD also shared key points on ODA graduation.

The meeting will serve to inform the drafting of the 2018 report of the Task Force. Please find a more detailed meeting summary below.