Global Solutions Summit 2023: Exploring Global Financing Tools to Achieve the Agenda 2030

According to the United Nations, cascading and interlinked crises, dominated by Covid-19, climate change, and conflicts, are putting the 2030 Agenda at grave risk. All Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been affected by the confluence of these crises: Years of progress in eradicating poverty and hunger, improving health and education, and providing basic services have been reversed. The current economic recovery is asymmetrical and very fragile, which is threatening to widen inequalities within and across countries. The SDGs are global common goods that bring together policymakers, business leaders and civil society in a common agenda that can help put us on a path towards a world where environmental, social, and economic outcomes are treated as interconnected. In light of the grave and persisting global challenges the world is facing, urgent action is now needed to revitalize the SDGs as a guiding framework. With 2023 marking the midpoint to the Sustainable Development Goal deadline of 2030, it’s high time to stand up for a better “second half” of the SDG era. To ensure the implementation of the SDGs on the regional, national, and global level, a huge new effort to scale up international financing in line with other supportive action is needed. To date, the financing of the SDGs has been, to a large degree, insufficient and unreliable. A systemic approach to financing is needed to make sure that the SDGs help deliver common goods and do not lag behind actual needs. Therefore, internationally, a more efficient use of existing funds, new sources of finance, and reforms to international financial institutions and funding mechanisms need to be considered. This session will investigate the changes that can help unlock the financial resources needed to support the 2030 Agenda and ensure that it comes to fruition. For example, the session will examine options for new financial sources that are permanent, systemic and sufficient, but do not create distortions – and could therefore be game-changers in safeguarding human flourishing, multilateral cooperation and global survival in the centuries to come.