By Ian Hall on 14/09/2026 | Updated on 14/09/2026
Global Government Finance Summit: being hosted in Dublin for the third successive year | Credit: Photos by Yashowardhan Singh (Unsplash – main photo), Sophie Popplewell (Unsplash – top right) & Deirdre Brennan (Finance Summit 2025)
Finance ministry leaders are arriving in Dublin today (14 September) for the Global Government Finance Summit 2026, the annual meeting of public servants responsible for public finances, fiscal policy and economic management.
The event is taking place amid an increasingly complex operating environment, with an agenda spanning topics such as global geopolitical and economic uncertainty, public spending pressures and public sector reform, digital transformation in public financial management, artificial intelligence, and workforce and skills challenges.
Senior government representatives at the summit – being held on 14-15 September – come from nations including Anguilla, Argentina, Belgium, Georgia, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Tanzania, UK and the United Arab Emirates.
AWS and Visa are this year’s knowledge partners for the summit, which is being hosted by Ireland’s Department of Finance for the third successive year.
Session titles include: ‘Exploring the evolving role of finance ministries’; ‘Beyond budgeting: moving from financial planning to delivering outcomes’; ‘Economic resilience – finance ministries in the driving seat?’; ‘Firing up finance ministry digital transformation’; and ‘Future-proofing finance ministry talent’.
The Future of the Finance Ministry: read the report
Finance ministries’ future
The 2026 agenda has been inspired by our research study The Future of the Finance Ministry (published in May), for which 10 government finance leaders were interviewed by Ireland’s chief economist John McCarthy alongside the Global Government Finance team.
Since its launch in 2015, the Global Government Finance Summit has become one of the leading international forums for public finance leadership, bringing together heads of finance ministries from developed and emerging economies.
The invitation-only roundtable event provides a unique opportunity for finance ministry leaders to exchange ideas with international peers facing such challenges in different national contexts. Unlike traditional conferences, the event focuses on peer learning and practical experience-sharing rather than formal presentations.
The summit has previously been hosted by finance ministries and government departments including Singapore’s Ministry of Finance; HM Treasury, UK; the German Federal Ministry of Finance; the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance; the Ministry of Finance, Estonia; and the General Treasury of Morocco.
This government-led approach ensures discussions remain focused on the real-world challenges facing public finance leaders and their organisations.
Read more: ‘Ireland for Finance Vision 2030’ strategy sets new priorities for finance department
Ireland’s finance focus
The Irish government has recently published its latest Ireland for Finance strategy.
The ‘Ireland for Finance Strategy Vision 2030’ – whose production was led by the Department of Finance – builds on the original 2019 edition and its 2022 successor, as well as the government’s ‘International Financial Services Strategy – IFS2020’ launched in 2015.
The revised strategy contains 31 ‘key actions’ that aim to boost competitiveness, support innovation and improve Ireland’s skills base, and is billed as “placing digital transformation, including artificial intelligence (AI), digital assets and tokenisation, at the centre of Ireland’s financial services ambitions”.
The 84-page strategy’s focus is ultimately on helping financial services and fintech companies but many initiatives see the public sector taking the lead.
Commitments include the Department of Finance exploring public sector use cases for digital assets and considering establishing an ‘innovation desk’.