As an international financial institution (IFI) and United Nations specialised agency dedicated solely to agriculture and rural development, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is uniquely positioned for resource mobilisation. Its primary role is supporting people living in poverty in rural areas through the provision of loans and grants to member countries.These are no-strings- attached loans with favourable financial terms, such as long lending periods (eg a 40-year repayment timeline) and concessional interest rates. Repayment terms depend on the borrower’s capacity to service the loan, while great care is taken to ensure loans are not taken by countries that are unable to repay the principal back. Moreover, borrowers must meet internationally recognised debt distress indicators and projections criteria.

Over the last 50 years there have been a variety of successful efforts to scale up development interventions to a national, regional and even global level. Among public sector-driven initiatives, China stands out for its systematic scaling approach (eg the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project)1, as does India with its large-scale rural development and health programmes, and Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades conditional cash transfer programme.2 Among private sector-driven scaling successes, the IT revolution is perhaps most notable, including such innovations as the M-Pesa mobile payments system in East Africa3, while among non-governmental organisation-driven initiatives, the Grameen Bank and BRAC in Bangladesh are prime examples. Moreover, there are external donor-driven cases of successful scaling, such as the Green Revolution; the River Blindness Program in West Africa; the Global Fund-led fight against HIV- AIDS, TB and malaria; global vaccination schemes under the auspices of Gavi; and Global Financing Facility-supported health programmes.

In the seven years since the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we have witnessed a profound trend: the convergence between the worlds of development finance and private finance. Where once these two spheres stood apart – in philosophy, policy and parlance – today there is growing recognition that, even if their core missions fundamentally differ, each needs the other in order to deliver on their strategies and aims.

A central message of the 2020 Review of the United Nation’s Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA) was the need to secure adequate, predictable and sustainable resources for peacebuilding, with the twin resolutions adopted at the conclusion of the review calling for the convening of a high-level General Assembly (GA) meeting on financing for peacebuilding.

This article examine four international financing flows for the Sustainable Development Goals that have consistently decreased over recent years, with many countries now facing a ballooning debt crisis that could impede development efforts. While private financing is the largest contributor to development financing, it carries risk due to its procyclical nature.

Secretary-General António Guterres has convened several high-level events and set out a number of bold recommendations through ‘Our Common Agenda’, advocating for a UN that can act as a catalyst for a more inclusive, networked and effective multilateralism. This article looks at emerging good practices within the UN development system aimed at more effectively leveraging private sector financing for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Planetary imbalances engender risks that can cause shocks to human development, thereby exacerbating inequalities and constraining the space for deliberative reasoning and collective action. This article introduces the Anthropocene, conceptualises the climate risks involved, and discusses the importance of valuing the biosphere.

Strengthening and building partnerships in public–private alliances is becoming increasingly important. Despite this, unlocking private capital through public resources in a blended finance mechanism for development and peacebuilding is seldom acted on, as international investors are kept at bay by the perceived ‘high risk’ of fragile contexts.

Secretary-General António Guterres has embarked on an ambitious reform agenda, calling for a shift from response to prevention through cross-pillar strategies, increased donor support to the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), and strengthened UN system support for countries facing complex conflict risks. Spotlighting Colombia as a case study, this article shows how, in 2018, led by the Resident Coordinators Office, a pilot finance facility was successfully designed using the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund as implementing vehicle and the PBF as funding partner.

Vaccine supply remains constrained and is not in itself sufficient to end the current phase of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Despite never previously having had to deal with a challenge that has impacted every country in the world simultaneously, the UN has excelled in this crisis, with the World Health Organization, UN Children’s Fund and World Food Programme all playing strong roles.

Blended finance mechanisms can potentially enable larger investor participation and help narrow the annual US$ 2.5+ trillion funding gap. However, in order to leverage more diverse financing flows for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN must create enabling environments – a key expectation of the Resident Coordinator (RC) function – while unlocking innovation and monitoring tools to measure impact.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the fundamental importance of strong health systems and universal access to quality health care. It has also highlighted the critical work of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the importance of the Triple Billion targets captured in its Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–25, as well as the organisation’s mission statement of ‘promote health, keep the world safe, serve the vulnerable’.

Human rights financing faces longstanding underinvestment, which has created structural, contextual and political impediments. This third pillar of the UN system has seen its resources spread thin at a time when the UN’s human rights machinery is most needed. In 2021, just US$ 129.3 million – 4% of the overall UN regular budget (excluding humanitarian affairs) – was allocated to the human rights pillar. Further, due to liquidity problems affecting the UN regular budget, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) received only 75% of its allocation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only reinforced the importance of agreeing that certain critical global public goods (GPGs) should be available to everyone, everywhere, it has highlighted the spectacular failure of many countries – including those that have long advocated for provision of GPGs – to look beyond their own borders and ensure a fairer, more multilateral, GPG-centred normative approach.

The UN of the twenty-first century requires greater flexibility and adaptability; revamped recruitment mechanisms; and new thinking around the sustainability and interoperability of different funding streams and the expertise and capacities they support. The peacekeeping budget and how it is funded has led to a longstanding divide between countries providing the bulk of personnel and those providing the bulk of finances.

Long-term climate analysis and predication are essential for climate mitigation and climate adaptation. The earth’s weather and climate systems are globally interlinked – today’s weather in one location will influence the weather elsewhere on the planet, which is why investment in improved weather observation capacity in the Pacific Islands will have global benefits. As such, national weather observations that are shared globally represent a global public good (GPG), while improving observations in locations that fall short of the Global Basic Observation Network (GBON) will have considerable significance.

It is essential to complement traditional funding for peacebuilding with blended finance, which in turn can support employment generation, economic inclusion, and more equitable access to social services.

In addition to increased voluntary and assessed contributions, it is important that new financing options continue to be explored, and that efforts to generate adequate and predictable funding for peacebuilding be renewed.

Can vaccines be classified as a global public good? While the overall numbers of those being vaccinated are heartening, they are also heavily skewed, with 90% of this global drive confined to the European Union, along with 11 other countries. In Asia and the Pacific, the numbers vaccinated remain very low – given current rates, it will take bold new measures if global herd immunity is to be achieved by the end of 2022.

Félix Fernández-Shaw presents a European perspective on the global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and asks questions on the way forward. He also touches on the increasing importance of the partnership between the EU, its member states, and the UN, stressing the need for effective multilateralism. In this regard, he singles out the need for an effective UN and for strong EU support for the Secretary-General’s development system reforms.

In the first contribution, Ambassador Omar Hilale explores the challenges currently confronting the climate agenda. Specifically, he focuses on the interactions between the COVID-19 pandemic, the global financial crisis and climate change. He argues the world must make the transition towards sustainable modes of production and consumption, and that financing must be made available for the restructuring necessary to make this leap.

In the second contribution to Part Three, the UN’s Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office writes a coming-of-age story on the UN pooled fund mechanism. It traces the evolution of the concept of pooled funding from its inception in 2004 to a mechanism which has a central role to play in making the current UN reform a success. While aggregate trends are positive, funding to pooled mechanisms is largely restricted to a handful of contributors. The paper makes the case that, in order for a quantum leap in funding to take place, a corresponding leap in quality is needed.

In the third contribution, John Hendra and Silke Weinlich ask if the transformational potential of the UN Joint SDG Fund can be turned into reality. They explain that the significance of the Joint SDG Fund lies in the fact that it provides a unique financial instrument to the newly empowered resident coordinators, in turn one of the outstanding features of the Secretary-General’s reforms in the development system.

Henriette Keijzers touches on the important work being done to strengthen the timeliness and quality of UN data and its use in decision-making. She emphasizes the fact that the UN has taken a major leap forward by developing a system-wide data strategy. This strategy focuses on the importance of making change happen through data use cases. She concludes that the UN’s success in realising its ambitious vision on data will depend on the grit and leadership of the entire UN family.

In the final chapter in this section, Navid Hanif and Philipp Erfurth focus on the nexus of new technologies and investment in sustainable development, asking if they are reinforcing forces which can generate synergies and unlock new funding for development. The authors argue that investment in emerging technologies can help accelerate achievement of the SDGs, while grasping the benefits of new technologies can help accelerate investment in sustainable development.

This contribution by Orria Goni, Emily Davis and Thomas Beloe explores how to build back from COVID-19 with a focus on financing strategies, including integrated national financing frameworks (INFFs). The authors argue that financing strategies that put the SDGs at the heart of recovery are crucial.

This contribution by Homi Kharas discusses the financing of the SDGs but widens the horizon to look at, for example, the contributions of private financing of public investment. He stresses that economic growth, and associated increases in domestic revenues, is far and away the largest driver of new financing for the SDGs, estimating that spending on the SDGs by developing countries could increase by US$ 7 trillion as a result.