Developing countries would be better able to finance the Sustainable Development Goals if rich countries were meeting their 2002 target to put 0.7 per cent of gross national income into overseas aid, the United Nations said on Monday, announcing a first major effort to measure progress in achieving the new Goals.
Launching this year’s Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures, UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said that if rich countries had consistently met the 0.7 per cent target since 2002, then developing countries would have been $2 trillion better off.
“The Sustainable Development Goals represent the outcome of long, serious discussions on how we want our world to look in 2030, but this vision needs serious finance,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said.
“The 0.7 per cent target will be a hard sell for many rich Governments, but these are a daring, ambitious set of Goals, and they require an equally ambitious response,” he said.
In 2015, the international community tasked UNCTAD and four other organizations to identify the means to finance the Sustainable Development Goals, through its Addis Ababa Action Agenda. The other organizations are the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.
By focusing on the Sustainable Development Goals, this year’s report reflects the international focus on the new Goals, putting numerical values on roughly a third of the Goals’ 230 indicators. It also generated the $2 trillion figure and highlighted some of the challenges in measuring progress on achieving the Goals.
The Goals have four times the number of indicators as their predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals, UNCTAD Head of Statistics Steve MacFeely said. But even for the Millennium Development Goals, the global community was able to measure only 70 per cent of the indicators.
“The global community has major gaps in its data and must find ways to use the existing data much better,” Mr. MacFeely said, adding that this year’s report would help to move measurement forward. “This report is online and interactive and has already thrown out some interesting results,” he said.
Only six countries have ever reached this target, which was first proposed by UNCTAD in 1968, then agreed to by the global community in 1970 and later reconfirmed at the International Conference on Financing for Development that was held in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002.
Note to Editors:
• The UNCTAD publication Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures is issued every four years. The reports provide statistical analyses on trade- and investment- related aspects of development. This year, the report provides statistical analyses and benchmarks for those Sustainable Development Goals that are relevant to the mandate of UNCTAD. As with the 2012 report, this year’s edition is an electronic release, with facilities to download data and PDF versions. Previous editions can be viewed at http://unctad.org/en/Pages/Statistics.aspx.
• Globalization, including a phenomenal expansion of trade, has helped lift millions out of poverty. But not nearly enough people have benefited. And tremendous challenges remain. UNCTAD supports developing countries to access the benefits of a globalized economy more fairly and effectively.
• UNCTAD, as the focal point in the United Nations for the integrated treatment of trade and development and interrelated issues in the areas of finance, technology, investment and sustainable development, helps equip developing countries to deal with the potential drawbacks of greater economic integration, through its three pillars of research and analysis, consensus-building and technical cooperation.
• The UNCTAD mandate is updated every four years when UNCTAD member States meet in a conference to agree on the body’s work programme. The most recent session, UNCTAD 14, takes place this year in Nairobi between 17 and 22 July.
• With the tagline “From decision to action”, this year’s Conference has extra importance as the first one since the global community established the Sustainable Development Goals and mandated – via the Addis Ababa Action Agenda – UNCTAD as one of five international entities to mobilize financing for development. The other four organizations are the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Development Programme.
• For further information, please contact Matthew Brown (254 79 521 5259) or Catherine Huissoud (254 79 020 1236) and unctadpress@unctad.org.
