Giving Compass' Take:

· As 2030 continues to inch closer, pressing concerns regarding funding for the UN Sustainable Development Goals continue to arise. The Brookings Institution provides four possible ways to fill the funding gap, but suggests using development finance to facilitate private sector investments. 

· How is development finance being used? How does it help fight poverty and income inequality?

· Want to read more about funding the Sustainable Development Goals? Here are some suggestions from Eurodad for financing sustainable development.

The Business and Sustainable Development Commission, Chaired by Lord Mark Malloch-Brown and comprised of business leaders from around the world, reports that it will likely require around $2.4 trillion a year of additional investment to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030. It also estimates that achieving those goals could open up as much as $12 trillion of market investment opportunities in four categories—food and agriculture, sustainable cities, energy and materials, and health and well-being. While that represents an enormous opportunity, it also prompts the question of what options exist to bridge the current gap in financing.

At least four options exist for filling that funding gap:

  1. To aggressively pursue efforts aimed at reducing or eliminating trade barriers that inhibit access to markets, impede the movement of goods and services across borders, and discourage foreign direct investment.
  2. To increase official development assistance (ODA) from the current flat trend of around $160 billion per year.
  3. To generate more revenue from domestic resource mobilization (DRM) and from improvements to the enabling environment for private sector investment and finance.
  4. To increase foreign and domestic investment in low and middle-income countries by ramping up the engagement of the development finance institutions (DFIs) and the multilateral development banks (MDBs).

Read the full article about filling the funding gap by George Ingram and Robert A. Mosbacher, Jr. at The Brookings Institution.