Here's an update on the work of the network on Financing for Development and our collective engagement in the upcoming Finance in Common Summit  in Cartagena, Colombia on 4-6 September. In this article you will find:

• The highlights from our recently held working group meeting on Financing for Development (August 23). 
• Information on how to participate to the Finance in Common Summit and share your messages for Public Development Banks
• Our Forus campaign on Financing for Development with videos and resources from over 10 members, activists and civil society organisations with their views on the future of development. 
• Please note that Forus members and partners will soon circulate the Civil Society Declaration which will be open for signatures and endorsement. 

Register to the Finance in Common Summit

At the latest Forus Financing for Development working group meeting, various Forus members, including, Lina Paola Negrette (CCONG, Colombia), Julien Agbessi (REPAOC, Central and West Africa)  Pedro Bocca, (Abong, Brazil), Jyotsna Mohan SIingh (ADA, Asia), Oyebisi Babatunde Oluseyi (NNNGO, Nigeria), and Bibbi Abruzzini (Forus) shared reflections and plans for engagement in the upcoming Finance in Common Summit (FICS) in Cartagena, Colombia and online on 4-6 September. 

Forus has been working with a CSO coalition on FICS over the past four years calling on all PDBs to transform their financing models and adopt more transparent and inclusive consultative processes to reduce climate and environment damage, debt burden, human rights violations and inequalities. 

We are working together with other CSOs on finalising the CSO Declaration that will be launched on September 4 during FICS calling on PDBs to move to concrete actions that center communities, human rights, equality and equity, with people - not profit - at their heart. 

For this year’s FICS we have also joined forces with local videographers and members to create independent video and written content on civil society views for the future of development. In this video series and campaign page you will find the words of civil society organisations and activists on the links between human rights and development projects, the influence of financing for development on the achievement of the SDGs, the request to public development banks to put the wellbeing of people and planet over profit-making and several other messages from across the Forus network. 

As we approach the summit, we would like to invite Forus members to share their messages for public development banks in the form here. Forus members in Cartagena will amplify your work and we will bring the conversation further in other international fora. 

• Find the campaign page here. 
• Find a social media kit to engage with the Forus network during this year’s FICS 
• Share your messages for public development banks here