The debate over a global development agenda beyond 2030 has begun. One lesson should shape it from the outset: Ambitious goals are meaningless without the means to achieve them.
The 2030 Agenda was underfunded from the beginning: The financial framework the international community could agree on were never sufficient to make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) achievable. The promised "billions to trillions" model - assuming that a few billion in public finance would mobilise trillions in private investment - never mobilised private capital at anywhere near the scale required.
Ten years on, less than half of SDG targets with available trend data are on track or showing moderate progress and the annual financing gap has grown to more than US$4 trillion.
In this new paper for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Bodo Ellmers outlines the current state of reform proposals on taxation and innovative finance, draws on good practice in international fiscal transfer systems, and sets out options for reducing the cost of capital for developing countries.
Proponents of ambitious goals often argue that bold targets alone build the political pressure to create the means to fund them. That didn't happen for the SDGs. This time, the Beyond 2030 negotiations need to put far more weight on the means to implement them from the very start.
The Road-to-2030 series, developed by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung's United Nations & Global Dialogue Liaison Office in New York, calls on leading experts across multiple fields to address the question, “How should we approach a global development agenda beyond 2030?” With papers on financing, economic principles, state capacity, gender justice, workers’ perspectives, peace and security, and other critical domains, the series explores the key questions and challenges to create an effective multilateral framework for global development. For more information, visit https://ny.fes.de/topics/2030-agenda.html
