•Canvasses $500bn annually for developing countries
Michael Olugbode in Abuja
The United Nations has called for an urgent and significant increase in the financing of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This call, according to a statement yesterday, followed the failure of the global financial system to effectively cushion the impacts of current global crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the ongoing climate emergency.
The statement quoted the UN Secretary-General António Guterres to have warned on the occasion of the launch of the SDG Stimulus, that: “Today’s poly-crises are compounding shocks on developing countries – in large part because of an unfair global financial system that is short-term, crisis-prone, and that further exacerbates inequalities.”
The UN Secretary-General stressed that: “We need to massively scale up affordable long-term financing by aligning all financing flows to the SDGs and improving the terms of lending of multilateral development banks,” adding that: “The high cost of debt and increasing risks of debt distress demand decisive action to make at least $500 billion available annually to developing countries and convert short term lending into long term debt at lower interest rates.”
According to the statement, “halfway to the 2030 Agenda deadline, progress on the SDGs – our roadmap out of crises – is not where it needs to be. To reverse course and make steady progress on the Goals, the SDG Stimulus outlines the need for the international community to come together to mobilise investments for the SDGs – but, in so doing, create a new international financial architecture that would ensure that finance is automatically invested to support just, inclusive and equitable transitions for all countries.”
It added that the current global financial system – originally created to provide a global safety net during shocks – is one in which most of the world’s poorest countries saw their debt service payments skyrocket by 35 per cent in 2022.
The “great finance divide” continues to proliferate, leaving the Global South more susceptible to shocks. Developing countries don’t have the resources they urgently need to invest in recovery, climate action and the SDGs, making them poised to fall even further behind when the next crisis strikes – and even less likely to benefit from future transitions, including the green transition.
As of November 2022, 37 out of 69 of the world’s poorest countries were either at high risk or already in debt distress, while one in four middle-income countries, which host the majority of the extreme poor, were at high risk of fiscal crisis. Accordingly, the number of additional people falling into extreme poverty in countries in or at high risk of entering debt distress was estimated to be 175 million by 2030, including 89 million women and girls.
Even prior to the recent rise in interest rates, least developed countries that borrowed from international capital markets often paid rates of five to eight per cent, compared to one per cent for many developed countries.
The statement explained that the SDG Stimulus aims to offset unfavourable market conditions faced by developing countries through investments in renewable energy, universal social protection, decent job creation, healthcare, quality education, sustainable food systems, urban infrastructure and the digital transformation, noting that increasing financing by $500 billion per year was possible through a combination of concessional and non-concessional finance in a mutually reinforcing way.
It pointed out that reforms to the international financial architecture were integral to the SDG Stimulus.
