Enter multiple shocks What was more, the focus on“footloose” private capital made developing countries more vulnerable to shocks, and there have been quite a number of those since 2015. Ten years into implementing the SDGs, UN monitoring unveiled a bleak picture—the 2026 UN Financing for Sustain­able Development Report acknowledged that no progress had been made in closing the SDG financing gap. Instead, it had grown to over$4 trillion per year (United Nations, 2026). And according to the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025, only 35% of the SDGs were on track, progress against half of them had stalled, and 18% had even regressed(United Nations, 2025b). Kevin Gallagher and Richard Kozul-Wright are two ex­perts who gave a scathing assessment of the“private fi­nance first” decade: Price movements and the profit motive were... fully entrusted to deliver the common good, at home and abroad. While much was promised from this makeover, inequality, indebtedness and insufficient productive investment have become the new normal of a hyper-­globalized economic landscape. (Gallagher& Kozul-Wright, 2022) By 2025, it was evident that the Agenda 2030 had failed to meet its objectives. Beyond 2030: toward a new financing framework Disappointment with the“billions to trillions” approach was one of the reasons why calls for a fundamental re­think started, following the shocking assessment of the state of SDG implementation. Clearly, public finance solutions—in combination with steps to reform the inter­national financial architecture to enable such solutions— have gained traction in discourse and policy as the de­liberations begin for a new global development agenda looking beyond 2030. It makes sense to distinguish between public finance solutions related to domestic resources and those related to international public resources and transfers. While the Financial Architecture Reform Is High on the Multilateral Agenda → UN Summit of the Future: The 2024 Summit con ­vened by the UN Secretary-General placed special emphasis on international financial architecture re­form as part of wider UN reform. → Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development: The conference hosted by the Spanish government in Sevilla in 2025 resulted in a new global financing framework(Compromiso de Sevilla). → UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation: The UN General Assembly mandated negotiations in 2024, to be concluded by the end of 2027, on a comprehensive and legally binding mul ­tilateral agreement on taxation. former are the financial backbone of any development agenda, and perhaps even more so beyond 2030, poorer countries and those in special situations(e.g., small is­land developing states or fragile states) will continue to require the latter, possibly in even larger volumes and on more favorable terms. Domestic resources: fixing the tax system Tax revenue in developing countries is far below the aver­age of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and De­velopment(OECD) member countries. According to the UN’s Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2026, the median tax-to-gross domestic product(GDP) ratio is only 14% in developing countries but is about 11 percent ­age points higher in developed countries(United Nations, 2026, p. 37). This is a key reason why many countries can ­not fund public policy objectives with their own resources, why borrowing needs are high, and why public services and social protection are not available in sufficient scale and quality. Moreover, the tax systems in many countries are not pro­gressive enough to combat inequality. This is because flat taxes such as value-added tax(VAT) carry significant weight while redistributive taxes, such as progressive in­come tax, inheritance tax, or wealth tax, are underuti­lized 1 . The problem is worse in the Global South, as tax 1  In developing countries, this was often a consequence of advice from the IMF and other international actors, which advocated for VAT as efficient and easy to use(Oxfam International, 2026). 4 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.