Introduction
The Third International Conference on Financing for Development has just concluded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 13 to 16 July. As previously indicated both the first (Monterrey, 2002) and second (Doha, 2008) international financing conferences were explicitly convened as precursors to the United Nations adoption of a common future global 
development agenda. As was also previously indicated the development agenda, which the first conference addressed subsequently morphed into the ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2005-15. The MDGs were, by any standard, a development breakthrough of historic proportions, which has galvanized the international development community to embark on a Post-2015 Development Agenda.
The convening of the first two conferences was explicitly dedicated towards finding the means and mechanisms for implementation of the agreed collective United Nations development agendas. In this regard the recently concluded third conference (Addis Ababa, 13 to 16 July) had the same objective. This time, however, the vision and goals are captured in an equally ambitious post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It should be observed however that, while the recent conference has been convened at a time when the global development community has recorded some considerable progress over the past decade, it is nonetheless facing serious threats and challenges on many fronts. In my view, these do not constitute the similarly intense crisis-driven atmosphere that faced the international community in either the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, when the first conference was held in 2002, or the financial and economic meltdown of the