Blistering heat, empty chairs mar UN's flagship development event

Brutal heat scorched Spain this week, a blistering reminder of the climate change that is battering the world's poorest countries — stretching their finances even as government debt climbs to new highs.

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But at a once-a-decade UN development finance conference in Seville, two key ingredients were in less abundance: money and power.

Just one G-7 leader — France's Emmanuel Macron — attended the event, where he and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez addressed rooms filled with dozens of empty chairs. Organisers initially said they expected 70 heads of state; that was whittled to 50 as the conference got under way.

Back in Washington, Paris, London and Berlin, leaders are slashing aid and cutting bilateral lending in a pivot to defence spending and rising debt at home.

"The mood is... I would say realistic, but also a sense of unity and of pragmatism," said Mr Alvaro Lario, president of the International Fund of Agricultural Development, adding that the question on everyone's minds was how to do more with less.

"How can we come together, or think out of the box, or create new types of ways of really stretching it more?"

The Financing for Development meeting is a flagship UN conference, charting the trajectory to help tackle changes the world must make to tax policies, aid spending or key areas such as debt, health and education. Its outcomes guide global aid funding and UN policies for the decade to come.