Giving Compass' Take:

• Jenni Lee at United Nations Foundation sits down and speaks with the UN Foundation’s Executive Director for Policy Minh-Thu Pham on how we can successfully achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and how to finance for the future. 

• In what ways can donors actively help finance sustainability? What areas need the most leverage? 

• Here's an article on the challenges of balancing sustainable development. 

How do we mobilize the financing we need to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This question is top of mind as members of government, civil society, and the private sector gather at the United Nations this week for the Forum on Financing for Development.

The forum is a moment to assess progress toward the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, an agreement reached by world leaders in 2015 to generate financing for the SDGs. And it takes place against a worrisome backdrop: Last week, the International Monetary Fund forecast a slowdown in global economic growth and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reported a decline in global aid. Additionally, a United Nations task force released the “2019 Financing for Sustainable Development,” which called for an overhaul of the global financial system.

To better understand the UN report and what needs to happen to finance the SDGs, I talked to the UN Foundation’s Executive Director for Policy Minh-Thu Pham.

Jenni Lee: The UN’s “Financing for Sustainable Development” report is pretty blunt that we are not where we need to be in terms of financing for the Sustainable Development Goals. What are some of the biggest hurdles?

Minh-Thu Pham: There are many, but I want to mention five specifically. First, one of the biggest hurdles is our global economic outlook. There are signs that the world may be looking at a peak in economic growth. I think people are concerned because the rates of growth that we’ve seen are not going to be maintained, much less increase.

Read the full article about financing for sustainable development by Jenni Lee and Minh-Thu Pham at United Nations Foundation.