Business leaders from the Global Investors for Sustainable Development (GISD) Alliance held their Strategy Group and Annual Meetings in New York on 28th and 29th October, 2024. The meetings took place at a critical time when the world is in urgent need for transformative action to bridge the SDG financing gap, which has ballooned to USD 4 trillion annually for developing countries. GISD representatives held discussions on key recommendations and actions to feed into the preparatory process of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) to be held in Spain in 2025.
GISD members listened to a message from the Secretary General and met with Navid Hanif, the Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, among other senior officials. Mr. Hanif reiterated the Secretary General’s message calling on the private sector to take actions that can ensure the structural shifts necessary to achieve the SDGs.
José Viñals, Group Chairman of Standard Chartered, stressed the need for the group to suggest practical, actionable solutions, and for the UN Member States to support regulatory reform that can help mobilize private investments for sustainable development.
Ahead of the Conference, the Alliance has been making efforts through its workstreams to enhance private capital mobilization and to better leverage blended finance - an important instrument in emerging markets and developing economies. In that regard, the Alliance is developing the Emerging Markets Paris Aligned Debt Fund (Formerly SIIP), a transformative blended finance concept, in collaboration with Allianz Global Investors. It has also been developing recommendations to tackle local currency risks and aligning incentives with long-term sustainable development. GISD members discussed key insights emerging from the workstreams and the next steps to bring recommendations to the FFD4 preparatory process, shaping the global agenda for financing sustainable development.
In addition, the GISD Alliance is co-chairing the FFD4 Business Steering Committee with the International Chamber of Commerce. The Committee has been set up to engage and mobilize the wider business sector to contribute to the Conference. For the first time, the Committee brings together a broad range of business organisations and groups, as well as UN-System related private sector initiatives to prepare consolidated private sector inputs to the Conference. The Committee will identify key issues concerning private financing for sustainable development and facilitate high-level commitments, initiatives and practices from the business sector on sustainable finance and investment.
GISD also met with the Bureau of the FfD4, composed of UN Member States, and listened to their concerns such as maintaining macro-economic stability, addressing the high costs of capital faced by developing countries and managing currency risks. GISD members reiterated their commitment to galvanize the wider business community’s support for the UN Secretary-General’s reform agenda, as well as to make concrete recommendations on unlocking additional investment for sustainable development.
The meetings were concluded by a luncheon hosted by the UN Foundation, providing the members an opportunity to share their reflections from the conference.
About Global Investors for Sustainable Development (GISD) Alliance:
The United Nations Secretary-General convened the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance in 2019 to deliver solutions to mobilize private finance and investment for the SDGs. The GISD Alliance members control assets worth up to US$16 trillion. The Alliance works with the United Nations and other partners to unlock finance and investment at scale by developing solutions, tools, and products to align the private sector with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and accelerate investment in the SDGs.