Giving Compass' Take:

• This article looks back at the 2017 Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg and takes a look to see if any headway has been made on the goals set during that event in the areas of development aid, health, gender equity and more.

• While there have been some advancements, there is still a long way to go — how can international groups engage across different sectors to accelerate progress?

• Here's why small businesses can (and should) do more to align with the SDGs.

On July 6, 2017, the eve of the G20 Summit, 11,000 Global Citizens, heads of government, leading politicians, companies, NGOs, artists, and music stars came together in Hamburg for the very first Global Citizen Festival in Germany. Together, we called on the G20 leaders to to deliver on their promises to the world’s poorest ...

A year later, we are checking on the pledges and commitments of the night. To what extent are governments, corporations, and foundations on track to deliver on their promises?

At the Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg, representatives from the Christian Democratic Party (CDU/CSU), Social Democratic Party (SPD), Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), and the Left Party (DIE LINKE) pledged support for Germany to reach and maintain the UN target to spend 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) on development aid. So far, Germany has only reached 0.7% once in 2016, largely due to in-donor refugee costs which can be counted towards ODA for a limited time period ...

In the first federal budget of the new government, which was approved by parliament in early July, the budget of the Development Ministry for 2018 increased significantly by €900 million to a total of €9.44 billion. According to the latest financial plans for 2019 budget released by the Finance Ministry, the development budget will further go up next year to €9.7 billion. Despite these increases, the investment is still too low to put Germany on track to achieve 0.7% within this legislative period and there is no timeline in place when the target will be met.

Read the full article about the progress since the Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg at Global Citizen.