Excellencies, distinguished delegates,
My delegation commends the co-facilitators- the distinguished ambassadors of Luxemburg and South Africa for organizing this informal consultation with Member States on the scope, format and programme of the 2nd FFD High-level Dialogue to be held in September this year.
The high-level dialogue in September provides an important opportunity to bring together leaders from government, business, and the financial sector, secure commitment and help unlock the resources and partnerships needed for achieving the SDGs.
Distinguished Cofacilitators,
In today’s extremely challenging global macroeconomic context, which has mainly resulted from the poly crises that we face, financing and sustainable development prospects are diverging sharply.
To be sure, the world certainly has the requite finances for achieving all the SDGs everywhere in the world, with global investable assets reach record $250 Trillion at the end of 2021.
But overwhelmingly, these resources are not being channeled towards sustainable development at the scale and speed necessary to achieve the SDGs.
One of the main issues that the high-level dialogue should seek to achieve is therefore to find ways to divert the available resources for achieving the SDGs. The focus should be to deliver concessional resources to developing countries, in particular the LDCs, climate and debt-vulnerable countries.
In recent times, including during the just concluded Ffd forum, discussions on how developing countries access adequate concessional finances revolved round issues including reforms of the international financial architecture, delivery in full of climate and ODA commitments, operationalizations of the Secretary General’s annual 500 billion SDG stimulus package, addressing debt distress faced by many vulnerable countries, blended finance, scaling up SDG-aligned investment, scaling up all types of international development cooperation, domestic resource mobilization, and private sector investment in SDGs.
The day long Ffd high level dialogue this year may therefore include thematic, representative, interactive panels on these issues with a view to finding common grounds to unlock resources for the SDGs especially for LDCs. Apart from interactive panels, the dialogue should include a leaders’ moment to allow leaders from government, business, MDBs and the financial sector to commit to addressing the financial constraints hindering the achievement of the SDGs.
I thank you.