New York, 31 October 2023 – With about $4 trillion in new investment needed annually to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries, top business executives from the Global Investors for Sustainable Development (GISD) Alliance met today with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed to propose transformative solutions for bridging the sustainable development financing gap.

At the midpoint of implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs, and amidst compounding economic, political, and humanitarian crises, the mandate of the GISD Alliance is now more important than ever. Members at the meeting launched a new phase where they pledged to spearhead the private sector’s support to the UN Secretary-General’s reforms, as presented in the SDG Stimulus and the Policy Brief on Reforms to the International Financial Architecture.

“I’m delighted to extend the GISD Alliance for 2024-2025. For this new and recharged phase, GISD needs to raise the level of ambition and be the torchbearer for mobilizing finance for the SDGs,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Heads and senior executives from Citi, Standard Chartered, Bank of America, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Sintesa Group, Agricultural Bank of China, and Investec were among the attendees at the annual UN meeting. 

At the meeting, GISD Alliance members committed to continue to advance the development of innovative finance and investment solutions. To do so, the GISD Alliance will join forces with partners from both public and private sectors to contribute to closing the SDG financing gap. Key action areas of the Alliance’s new phase include:

• Making blended finance work with impact.  
• Developing and sharing innovative instruments and platforms to mobilize and channel investment to countries and sectors most in need.
• Addressing institutional and regulatory impediments to longer-term investment by the private sector in sustainable development.

The new phase of the GISD Alliance will run until 2025. The deliverables and recommendations arising from the Alliance’s work will feed into agreed actions among UN Member States at the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development proposed for 2025.

Leading the GISD Alliance’s new phase to create lasting impact are José Viñals, Group Chairman of Standard Chartered, and Shinta Kamdani, CEO of Sintesa Group. Ms. Kamdani replaces departing Co-Chair Leila Fourie, CEO of Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

“Collaboration between public and private sectors, across emerging and developed economies, is the cornerstone of sustainable progress. During my tenure as co-chair, I have witnessed how the GISD’s unique platform empowers emerging markets to connect with key role players across borders to identify and solve for the hurdles to large-scale financing of sustainable development,” said Fourie.

“Ongoing collaboration is critical if we are to meet the diverse funding needs of the SDGs. In making progress, the GISD Alliance will strive to deliver impact at scale and speed where the needs are greatest. The shared commitment of private and public funds, applied as blended finance, provides a powerful mechanism for delivery and deserves our continued focus,” stated Viñals.

“Closing the SDG gap requires both capital investment and a suitable business environment to roll out the investment. The role of advocacy and engagement will be imperative for the next phase of the GISD Alliance, especially in pipelining finance towards the real sectors. In that regard, collaboration will be the key to ensuring that our joint efforts are systemic and truly create significant change,” concluded Kamdani.

Launched by the UN Secretary-General in 2019, the GISD Alliance has broken ground on innovative solutions to scale up long-term finance and investment for sustainable development. Among its achievements so far are the GISD’s definition of Sustainable Development Investing (SDI), which has become the basis of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group principles to align investment with sustainable development; the sector-specific SDG-related metrics, which have enabled rigorous measurement of the private sector’s contribution to the SDGs in eight sectors; the updated edition of the model mandate, which serves to guide asset owners on incorporating stewardship and sustainability objectives in agreements and contracts with asset managers; and GISD’s paper on the private sector’s perspective on reforming multilateral development banks, which has advanced the global policy dialogue on private capital mobilization to achieve the SDGs.