Sustainable Development Finance

To meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world must ramp up development financing from billions to trillions of dollars. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the financing needs and made them more complex. We must think beyond aid, to private finance, and unlocking developing countries’ own resources. The roles of financiers and developing country partners in mobilizing and allocating aid needs to change so that the international community can focus not only on country-by-country development, but also on pressing shared problems, such as climate change, global health and international migration. Financing must encourage a resilient and sustainable future.

At the same time that the world is looking to scale up development financing, the development financing system is becoming more complex. There are new donors, like China and India, with different development paradigms. And the emergence of new multilateral development agencies and national development banks add resources to the mix but raise the question of whether new models of international cooperation are needed to maximize the leverage of scarce financing.

Our research focuses on five questions: How can the international financial system produce sufficient funding for recovery and sustainable development? How should it be allocated to help countries rebuild their economies, meet the SDGs and confront global challenges? How can financing most effectively mobilize private capital, safeguard public monies, and keep debt levels sustainable? How can domestic resources be mobilized within developing countries? And how should existing institutions be changed to best cooperate?