Building the Case for Action | Center on International Cooperation

Advocating for multilateral solutions to global challenges

The urgency of maintaining international unity has never been clearer. Conflicts, climate change, and economic crises—intensified by opposing political currents—are straining the foundations of multilateral cooperation. Building the case for action and offering practical solutions is vital to re-establishing faith in multilateralism and driving necessary reforms. Among the most pressing needs is addressing global financing gaps, particularly for developing economies and the Global South, where systemic challenges like rising debt, inequality, and the lack of effective funding mechanisms threaten long-term stability and progress.

Through high-level convenings and cross-regional dialogues, this workstream supports the creation of coalitions advocating for shared global solutions. CIC’s focus is to align multilateral reforms with the realities of today’s geopolitical and economic landscape, looking to find ways to bolster the system’s ability to respond to the ongoing polycrisis, financing shortfalls, and double standards.

Key Initiatives

Convening cross-regional dialogues with member states, and global leaders to discuss financing for development, fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) challenges, and other issues.
Advancing policy conversations on how to strengthen multilateralism and multilateral institutions.
Providing research and analysis to track shifts in global politics and propose pragmatic solutions to maintain multilateral coherence in the face of rising tensions.
Publishing CIC Perspectives, a series of publications and reports that provide in-depth analysis on key multilateral issues, offering insights on global policy shifts and challenges.

Financing for Development

In 2025, a critical area where multilateralism created meaningful impact was Financing for Development—a process in which the outcome document, the Compromisso de Sevilla, signed on July 3rd 2025 at The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development, helped to determine the upcoming decade of development financing. This process occurred amidst a landscape of escalating debt levels, deepening inequality, and financing mechanisms available to developing countries becoming increasingly insufficient.

CIC’s focus in this area included pushing for systemic reforms that enable equitable access to finance, with an emphasis on debt sustainability, reform of multilateral development banks (MDBs), as well as boosting domestic resources mobilization through fair tax policies and international tax cooperation.

Through strategic speaking engagements, policy publications, and direct input into key negotiation processes, CIC ensured our research and recommendations in these areas contributed meaningfully to negotiations for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development process and its outcome document. Additionally, this workstream actively engaged in efforts to build cross-regional common ground to advance a more equitable financing system that responds to the needs of developing economies, along with providing technical assistance to regional groups to support them in articulating their priorities during this process.