Financing for Sustainable Development

Financing is the test of our seriousness. Without resources, we will simply not deliver for people or planet. But with adequate, predictable, sustainable funding, everything is possible.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development, New York, 2019

The financing gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries is estimated to be US$ 2.5 - 3 trillion per year (UNCTAD World Investment Report, 2014). However, available finance is not channeled towards sustainable development at the scale and speed required to meet the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Paris Agreement. The United Nations system, including through the Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) and its two high-level committees, the High-level Committee on Management (HLCM) and the High-level Committee on Programmes (HLCP), has been championing the importance of strengthening financing for development, most recently within the context of supporting Member States in moving towards sustainable and resilient pathways that will enable the global community to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, recover better and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Against the backdrop of the Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, the United Nations system will continue to provide leadership in unlocking the SDGs as a shared results framework, support the facilitation of financing for the goals and provide accurate and timely data and statistics for tracking progress in the implementation of SDGs at the country level as well as existing financial flows and financing gaps. To that end, CEB has repeatedly stressed the need for the United Nations system to facilitate the support of decision makers and the public for the mobilization of the necessary human, physical and financial resources and capacities to support the acceleration of the implementation of the Goals. Emphasizing the importance of a whole-of-society approach and the inclusion of all stakeholders, the Board has called for the systematic engagement of the private and financial sector in the effort to strengthen financing.

Within the context of its deliberations on climate action, CEB has recognized that scaling-up climate finance will be critical to deliver the necessary actions to address climate change. As a system-wide input, the leaders of the United Nations system organizations issued a joint appeal to the Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in 2019, calling on Member States to, inter alia, build enabling policy frameworks to facilitate access to public and private finance and to implement and scale-up public policies to redirect finance flows towards low-emission and climate resilient development. Leaders also committed to strengthening the system-wide effort to create an enabling environment for investment, mainstream climate action across relevant national financial planning and integrate market-based instruments to sustainably crowd in and scale up responsible private sector investment.