The Challenges of Financing the Sustainable Development Goals

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Speaker: Navid Hanif, Director, Financing for Sustainable Development Office, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)

As the world economy teeters on the precipice and countries race to meet the vast financing needs for the COVID-19 response and recovery, challenges of financing sustainable development have been elevated to the top of the global policy agenda. Mobilizing financing – from public and private resources - to invest into a sustainable and resilient recovery has become a vital priority for countries and the international community alike. Our success in mobilizing financing for sustainable development and tackling associated challenges will make or break our efforts to build back better from the pandemic and achieve the SDGs by 2030.

Despite some progress, efforts have been hampered by pre-existing challenges and economic vulnerabilities, which pre-date the crisis and have been acutely exacerbated by the broad-based economic fallout caused by COVID-19. In addressing these financing challenges – old and new, this webinar by Mr. Navid Hanif, Director of the Financing for Sustainable Development Office of UN DESA, will explore the following questions:

-- What will it take to achieve global solutions to financing challenges within the context of the most profound economic downturn since the Great Depression? How will megatrends, including digitalization, changing trade patterns and the effects of climate change, alter our economic trajectory?
-- What policy actions can address near-term financing challenges, including the escalating debt crisis, and provide fiscal space to enable countries to invest in the COVID recovery and 2030 Agenda?
-- What will a post-COVID economy look like and what role can the private sector play in ensuring a resilient and “green” recovery that is aligned with the SDGs?
-- How can we ensure that the most vulnerable countries and people, which have been hardest hit by the pandemic, are not being left behind in a global recovery and the post-COVID economy?

The webinar will explore these questions with an eye on the role of the 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda as a roadmap for national and multilateral action to achieve the dual objective of advancing recovery efforts from COVID-19 and overcome persistent challenges to the financing of the SDGs.

This event will be hosted online via Zoom. Advance registration is required. We will send access information one day prior to the event.

Register here: https://events.columbia.edu/go/FinancingSDGs_NavidHanif_UNDESA

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