Children in Mexico City hold signs with the Sustainable Development Goals. Development crisis: countries must urgently increase funding for global goals Sustainable Development Goals
The global development finance gap is now estimated at $4.2 trillion a year, up from $2.5 trillion before the pandemic. This is the conclusion reached by the authors of the UN report on financing for development, which was presented on Tuesday by First Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed.
She stressed that financing problems lie at the heart of the global sustainability crisis: debt burdens and huge borrowing costs prevent developing countries from moving forward.
Meanwhile, rising geopolitical tensions, climate disasters and the global cost of living crisis have affected billions of people, undermining progress on health, education and other Sustainable Development Goals. There are only six years left until the 2030 SDG deadline, the UN reminds.
“We are faced with what I think can be called a serious development crisis, a crisis that is fundamentally financial and requires a huge international effort,” Mohammed said.
If current trends continue, the UN estimates that nearly 600 million people, more than half of them women, will continue to live in extreme poverty in 2030.
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Report shows that only massive increases in funding and reform international financial architecture will help the international community achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the target date.
“We urgently need more investment for our sustainability agenda, but as the report says, this depends on fundamental shifts in the global economy and public sector leadership,” Mohammed stated.
“We need countries to make concrete commitments to transform economic and financial systems that enable sustainable development. The message of the Financing for Development 2024 report couldn’t be clearer: we have to make a choice now – we either succeed together or we can fail,” she concluded.