Carmen Arguello, Sustainable Development Officer, Policy and Programme Branch, UNDCO opened the webinar. Speakers included Nohman Ishtiaq – Senior Expert – Public Financial Management and Budgeting for the SDGs, UNDP; Ekaterina Chubarova, Sustainable Finance and Just Transition Specialist at International Labour Organization; Joy Kim, Senior Economic Affairs Officer, Economic and Trade Policy Unit, UNEP; Glenn Hodes, Senior adviser on SDG investment, UN DESA.
Nohman Ishtiaq emphasizes the significant financial resources needed to accelerate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in developing countries, where 10-15% of GDP may be necessary annually. He underscored that UNDP supports an integrated national financing framework to combine public and private finances for the SDGs, collaborating with over 85 countries. He also added that mainstreaming SDGs is not only defining budget policies that align with the SDGs during the budget cycle, but also helping countries improve evaluation systems, including tracking public expenditure by the SDGS.
Ekaterina Chubarova from the International Labour Organization discussed the role of private sector financial institutions in supporting a just transition to sustainable practices. She highlighted the necessity for financial institutions to integrate social considerations into sustainability initiatives to ensure a comprehensive and equitable transition. “The private sector is also actively participating in this effort, particularly investing in areas where the investment returns are possible, but we also know that the social dimension of sustainability did not develop with the same pace and the same scale as green financing”, said Ekaterina Chubarova.
Joy Kim from UNEP emphasized the misalignment of public finance concerning sustainable development goals (SDGs), highlighting the disparity between funding for nature-based solutions and harmful public finance. “ […] it is important to have a framework that allows countries to understand where their public finance is flowing but more importantly to know what kind of impact public finance has”, she said. Kim explained that while some public spending, like fuel and harmful agriculture subsidies, impact negatively the environment, sometimes it is not obvious and that is why assessments are crucial. For example, investing in a clean energy power station in a biodiversity hot spot could inadvertently harm biodiversity. She called for a systematic approach to public finance to support sustainable development and address various economic and environmental challenges.
Glenn Hodes highlighted the importance of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in achieving the SDGs and facilitating the green transition and stressed the need for collaboration to mobilize resources and drive sustainable investments. He provided examples of successful partnerships such as a green mortgage initiative in Peru as a way to promote energy-efficient building practices. “We all can understand the partnerships are critical to achieving the SDGs and a just green transition […] As I see it, there’s sort of three critical ways that public private partnerships come into play. The most important is means of implementation. […] Then I think the other layer of public private cooperation is really around knowledge sharing and technical cooperation”, he said.
