Article is an extract from Navid Hanif’s video for the Unlocking Investment and Finance in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs)
The leaders have adopted two agendas to achieve prosperity save the planet and offer better life to people the first is the twenty thirty agenda adopted in September twenty fifteen and seventeen sustainable development goals. The same year in December the Paris agreement on climate change. So the two agendas for people planet and prosperity also aim to promote peace and stability and partnerships to achieve the seventeen goals. These goals have to be financed and that is the whole part of the global consensus and for that the leaders met in July twenty fifteen an adopted the Addis Ababa action agenda which is designed to mobilize resources to finance sustainable development and also to ensure long term stability at the global level in financial affairs.
The Addis Ababa action agenda deals with all flows domestic international public private and the primary objective is to align these flows to national sustainable development agenda and the global sustainable development and agreement I want to focus on two key parts of the agenda which pioneer throughout the seven chapters of this agenda dealing with all types of flows of resources and the impact of technology. One part of the agenda is about national actions how governments will align their financing strategies investment policies and budgets to the sustainable development goals national actions also include domestic resource mobilization and creating enabling environment to attracting investments into complement those efforts the steps that will be taken at the international level by the global community. Let me flak four issues that deserve attention.
First and foremost many countries have undertaken measures to attract investment to improve the environment for doing business in these countries some have been able to move considerably on the scale of doing business index and those efforts have been widely acknowledged hundred and twenty eight countries under took more than three hundred reforms to attract investment over the last fifteen years despite these changes the investments have not raised to the level that were expected to go and this continues to be perceive risks in these countries for investment.
There are also examples for changing incentives to private sector to operate in these countries for both their own national private sector and global products and we have seen limited results for those ships. There are also opportunities that these countries are using on public private partnerships on blended finance many new instruments have been deployed to address risks to encourage the private sector to invest in sustainable development related projects but the results have been limited.
There is growing interest by with the private sector to invest and sustainable development but they also need major changes from the public sector the UN sector general has recently launched an initiative on global investors for sustainable development alliance which is meant to nice the private sector to move its time horizon from short term results and gains to long term investment. This also meant to create conditions for other seals to adopt these policies and shift the trajectory towards sustainable development investment.
These national measures and global initiatives to mobilize resources have to be matched by a collective global action to address financial volatility global imbalances and this juncture trade tension global cooperation in tax matters especially for the digitalized economy could have been considered offers to advance the global agenda in addressing these issues. External debt is also one of the rising risks that many low income countries are facing.
All of the issues these issues are addressed heated the United Nations this is one place where the sustainable development goals and financing for development agenda are brought together at one platform and that is the economic and social council’s forum on financing for development which brings together the IMF the World Bank, the World Trade Organization from the government side finance ministers planning ministers and wide range of stakeholders, private sector civil society academia this forum provides a platform for global discussions on both national level actions and global collective action to mobilize financing for sustainable development the forum adopts into governmentally agreed outcome which has very specific actions the forums discussions are informed by a report on financing for sustainable development which is prepared by more than fifty organizations led by the UN department of economic and social affairs and this report has managed to advance discussions on a number of issues which are critial to the implementation of Addis Ababa action agenda. These include managing external debt challenges adopting into the international financing framework and also dealing with the issues of FinTech.
We strongly believe that full implementation of the Addis Ababa action agenda can unleash sufficient resources for implementing the twenty thirty agenda but twenty third but that implementation will only happen if there is commitment of all levels to take both immediate actions and long term measures to shift the trajectory of financing development as it works and all we need to need to re think the models global and national and take some bold decisions to secure this planet and ensure that no one is left behind in this age of rapid globalization and economic destruction and I’m sure that this course will help you in developing policies that mobilize resources to finance the sustainable development goals thank you.