Achieving Sustained Development Financing for the 2030 Agenda

The rapidly transforming development finance landscape affects the UN Development System’s capacity to support an integrated approach, and to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Faced with the task of delivering on the agenda with limited resources, it is crucial for the United Nations to examine, deliberate, and determine how to achieve sustained development financing for longer-term support and create maximum impact.

To provide a platform where UN staff and partners can exchange knowledge and expertise to address this enormous challenge, the UN Development Operations Coordination Office (DOCO), has partnered with the UN System Staff College (UNSSC), to launch the Funding to Financing Webinar Series on 31 January 2017. Watch the webinar here.

Kanni Wignaraja, Director of UNDOCO, and Yannick Glemarec, ASG of UN Women and Co-Chair of the UNDG Programme Working Group, opened the event and discussed what Funding to Financing is, why it is important and how we can achieve it. In attendance were 210 participants from UN headquarters and field offices.

“The United Nations is entrusted with approximately 48 billion USD per year through a variety of sources and means, representing 0.05% of the world’s economy. It is large in our world but it is a drop in what is really required in order to help an ambitious agenda, like the SDGs, and if all countries are to deliver on these goals”, said Ms. Wignaraja. She encouraged participants to articulate a vision for strategic financing, a critical issue in an evolving geopolitical environment.

Mr. Glemarec introduced the participants to the basic concepts of Funding to Financing, mapped the broad financial landscape, assessed the financing options and instruments, and presented examples of incentives to collective action and system-wide coherence.

Ms. Aida Ghazaryan of the UNSSC summarised key messages, and explained the complexities and opportunities of having multiple actors in development financing, and the types of support available to UN staff.

The complete schedule of the Funding to Financing webinar series is found below with registration links for each session. You may send questions pertaining to each session to kit.doco@undg.org. All recorded webinars will be uploaded on Peer Talk, a platform for UN staff and stakeholders from academia, foundations, civil society and the private sector to join live webinars and ask senior UN officials in real-time.