Panel on: Development cooperation and sovereign financing priorities.
Questions:
As Cuba continues to implement its national development priorities, what types of technical assistance are most needed to navigate the complex financial landscape?
In addition, how can international development partners better align their programs with Cuba’s priorities to ensure effective and sustainable development cooperation?
We thank the UNDP and the INFF Mechanism (UNDP, UNDESA, UNICEF, OECD, EU, Italy, Spain, Sweden) for organizing this event and inviting us to share our experiences with the Integrated National Financing
Frameworks (INFF). We also appreciate the opportunity to participate in this Panel to reflect on a topic of great importance, not only for the future of developing countries, but especially for Cuba, which faces unique challenges on its path to sustainable development.
There is national commitment from developing countries to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, there has been insufficient international support to follow up on the commitments made in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the 2030 Agenda, even before the Covid-19 pandemic. There has also been a lack of international solidarity.
With five years to go until 2030, less than one-fifth of the SDGs are on track, a situation exacerbated by an annual financing gap of 4 trillion dollars.
For Cuba, complying with the 2030 Agenda is a national commitment and a national priority. This is supported by the alignment of the 17 SDGs with the six strategic axes of our National Economic and Social Development Plan towards 2030 (known as PNDES 2030).
The economic plan and the annual budget are instruments through which resources and capacities for the implementation of the SDGs are identified and defined.
Even in the complex inflationary context that characterizes the international scenario, Cuba is one of the countries in the Latin American region that invests the most in social assistance and social security, health, education, culture and sports, with more than 60% of public spending allocated to these areas.
However, the limitations resulting from the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States Government for more than six decades, constitute the main obstacle to the development of our country and make the national financial panorama unstable, undiversified and unsustainable.
The refusal of hundreds of entities around the world to provide external credit to the country, as well as to maintain banking, financial and commercial relations for fear of retaliation, is increasingly evident. Unilateral coercive measures remain an undeniable obstacle, significantly limiting the integrated national financial frameworks for the achievement of the SDGs.
Under the leadership of national authorities, the UN system has also contributed to the advancement of the SDGs and our National Economic and Social Development Plan towards 2030, by providing means for implementation at the national and local levels, in a way that is articulated with the priorities agreed in the Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.
The program “Support for the development of an Integrated National Financing Framework for the SDGs in Cuba” (CIFFRA) is part of the initiatives financed by the Joint SDG Fund of the United Nations system.
As part of this approach, CIFFRA set out to evaluate and rethink policy strategies aimed at increasing, diversifying, and optimizing financing for development sources in Cuba. Over a 33-month period (July 2020 - March 2023), CIFFRA undertook a comprehensive program of recommendations and diagnostic exercises on financing for development policies in the country.
This identified the need to work in areas such as acquisition and diversifying external resources for infrastructure development, exploring opportunities for access to regional and subregional development banks, external debt management, training in innovative financing mechanisms, a financing strategy for productive transformation and international insertion, and the use of science, technology and innovation to modernize and optimize production processes. These are areas that would benefit from technical assistance at the international level, and from the entities of the UN system.
In May 2024, the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP), the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) and the UNDP, under the auspices of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), organized the International Conference on Financing for Development in Havana. For two days, more than 150 national and international delegates debated alternative solutions and created alliances around the challenges of financing development in Cuba. As a continuation of CIFFRA, this space allowed for the identification of areas of work to address the country’s specific development finance challenges and contributed to capacity building.
This type of initiative helps international development partners better align their programs with Cuba’s priorities and ensure effective and sustainable development cooperation by providing in-depth knowledge of the challenges facing the country.
Similarly, international partners should be familiar with the National Plan for Economic and Social Development until 2030, which identifies national development priorities. The CIFFRA project developed with UNDP is also a reference for identifying financing needs.
Correspondingly, other projects should be developed that promote long-term sustainability, thus guaranteeing that investments not only solve immediate problems, but also lay the foundation for sustainable economic and social development.
It is important to ensure that cooperation programs include climate resilience components, such as the promotion of renewable energy, adaptation to climate change, and natural disaster management, areas in which Cuba has experience and also needs additional support.
In addition, it is necessary to ensure that concessionary financing is provided where it is most needed, taking into account measures that go beyond GDP to support developing countries’ access to it and technical cooperation.
In conclusion, for international partners to be truly effective in their cooperation efforts with our country, they must adopt an approach based on respect for sovereignty, co-creation of solutions and adaptation to national realities. The key is to ensure that cooperation is aligned with Cuba’s national priorities and promotes long-term sustainable development. In such a way, Cuba can continue to advance its development goals and achieve a more prosperous and sustainable future.
Thank you