Implementing Agenda 2030 - No money, no SDGs

Taking in a range of issues from gender equality to climate change, the UN’s Agenda 2030 is deep and broad. Achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets will require wider, greater contributions that the UN’s previous targets, the Millennium Development Goals.

With budgets in western, donor governments – long the biggest source of official development assistance (ODA) – under pressure, implementation of the goals will depend on new ways to mobilise financing, participants told a Friends of Europe debate on 14 June. Beyond the West, contributions could come from a new range of donor countries that have achieved big leaps in economic development in recent decade, such as China, Turkey and South Korea. Financing from the private sector will be increasingly important too. And civil society could play a greater role, in promoting stability and monitoring progress. The challenge is to mobilise these actors.

“The question people are asking all over the world is: Is it serious?” said David Nabarro, United Nations Special Adviser on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, who said he was speaking on behalf of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “The answer is yes. We are treating it as a manifesto for the future of the world and its people – to sustain life as we know it for coming generations. Every company, every investment house has to see that it is their responsibility to advance this. You can’t excuse yourself from participating.”

Though the SDGs are not arranged in a hierarchy, Li Yong – Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) – emphasised the importance of number nine: “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.” Much of the funds for this will come in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) rather than ODA – and FDI has, in any case, become far larger. “For many years ODA played an indispensable role in helping countries move out of the poverty trap,” Li said. “Now, UNIDO has strongly proposed that FDI should be one of the focuses to help us generate financing for development.”

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