Sustainable Finance Financing the Sustainable Development Goals

The SDGs call for major societal transformations that require significant fiscal outlays as well as private investments. Estimates highlight that $5-7 trillion is needed annually from multiple sources to achieve the SDG targets, but the Global Financial Architecture – funding from the public, private, and philanthropic sectors – is nowhere near meeting this need. Moreover, the quality and speed of the deployment of international cooperation are poor, and the mechanisms for monitoring progress remain mired in outdated systems.

The SDSN’s sustainable finance work through the SDG Transformation Center and its leadership of the High-level Group on the SDG Stimulus Plan and Global Commission on Urban SDG Finance supports international efforts to scale up sustainable development finance. The SDSN achieves this through assessing global, regional, national, and subnational SDG financing gaps; supporting countries’ efforts to develop long-term budget frameworks, pathways, and mechanisms aligned with the SDGs in partnership with UN agencies, multilateral development banks, and other key stakeholders; promoting sustainable private sector finance; and providing recommendations to share fairly and globally the burden of financing for human-induced adaptation and loss and damage costs among responsible countries.