Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday that developing economies are being hindered in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to low access to developmental finance. In this regard, she stressed the need to urgently overcome the annual financing gap of US $ 4,000 billion. At the third ‘Voice of Global South’ conference held digitally, she said that recent reports show that the implementation of many SDGs in developing economies is stagnating, while some indicators are also going backwards.

1 in 4 developing countries will be poorer than before
Sitharaman said that the SDG financing gap for developing countries is estimated to be $ 4,000 billion annually. She said that the Global South is affected by global uncertainties, and according to a recent World Bank report, one in four developing countries will be poorer by the end of this year than before the pandemic. She said, “Thus, growth is insufficient to advance progress in development and poverty alleviation. There is an urgent need to address the US$ 4,000 billion financing gap to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.”

Sustainable Finance Technical Assistance Action Plan
The Finance Minister said that during India’s G20 presidency, it was recommended to widely adopt social impact instruments and other blended finance instruments, monitoring and measurement frameworks, and risk mitigation measures. She said, “Our efforts also led to the G20 Sustainable Finance Technical Assistance Action Plan, which is now being implemented under Brazil’s presidency. Its aim is to enhance sustainable finance according to the needs of the Global South.” Talking about reforms in multilateral development banks, Sitharaman said that these institutions need to be comprehensively revamped so that they can help developing countries meet their growth needs.