Delivering on the 2030 Agenda

IMF News, October 9, 2016

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MDBs and the IMF support member countries to translate the SDGs into country-level targets, policies, programs, and projects.
They provide financing directly and by helping to “unlock” and catalyze additional public and private resources.
They provide policy advice and technical assistance to build domestic capacity and identify priority investments with the right standards.
The IMF and the World Bank are strengthening their debt sustainability assessment tools to ensure that investment scaling-up does not threaten public finance sustainability.
Institutions commit to make best use of respective business models, enhance the multiplier effect of financing, expand technical assistance, disseminate and share knowledge and best practices, and provide innovative and integral solutions to multidimensional development problems.

Continued enhancement of coordination and collaboration throughout 2016.
Agreed common actions on forced displacement, infrastructure, urbanization, climate finance, and private investment.
Launched the first Global Infrastructure Forum in April 2016; preparing the second Forum to be held at the same time as the IMF-World Bank Group Spring Meetings in April 2017 focusing on inclusive, sustainable infrastructure.
Committed to tackle forced displacement at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May 2016 and begun launching new facilities addressing root causes.
A special joint Task Force advanced harmonizing methodologies and common metrics to quantify private finance catalyzed by MDBs.
- Intend to start jointly reporting measures of private direct mobilization and private cofinancing in 2017, building on existing joint MDB reporting of private climate cofinancing.
- Will encourage other Development Finance Institutions and OECD to adopt the same methodology to facilitate greater global transparency.
MDBs will mainstream and implement the UN New Urban Agenda for Habitat III Conference in Quito in October (year implied 2016) to promote equitable, sustainable, and productive urbanization.

Paris commitments: countries committed to make a leap forward towards achieving climate resilience and net-zero emissions from 2050 onwards.
MDBs are aligning organizations and joint actions with this agenda via a joint climate action partnership.
Partnership aims:
- Develop a collaborative and coherent approach, within respective institutional mandates, to work with countries to implement their NDCs and develop adaptive capacities.
- Scale up low-carbon and climate-resilient investments for sustainable infrastructure, including speeding the energy transition consistent with the Paris Agreement.
- Align financial flows with countries’ pathways to low-carbon and climate-resilient development.
- Increase predictability and ease of access to concessional resources, such as the Green Climate Fund.
- Leverage private finance for climate investments.
The IMF and the World Bank Group will provide technical assistance to countries seeking to implement carbon taxation as an efficient tool for containing emissions.

Forced displacement identified as a significant challenge to SDG progress.
Commitment to a new humanitarian-development partnership.
Concessional financing and institutional capacity building for fragile and conflict-affected states emphasized.
Efforts to bridge humanitarian and development assistance to support countries hosting large numbers of refugees.
Two new facilities noted:
- World Bank’s Global Concessional Financing Facility, part of its Global Crisis Response Platform.
- European Investment Bank’s new Resilience Initiative for EU’s Southern Neighborhood and Western Balkans.
Complementary efforts include IDB’s Alliance for Prosperity Plan in the Northern Triangle.

In line with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the G20 call, MDBs are implementing measures to optimize balance sheets:
- Exposure exchange agreements to diversify portfolio concentration.
- Merging and leveraging concessional windows with accumulated equity and increased liquidity.
- Internal revenue and expenditure actions to increase available medium-term capital as part of a Value-for-Money agenda.
Given growing financing demands of the 2030 Agenda and financial capacity limits, efforts to optimize capital will continue.
Such efforts should be complemented by other mechanisms, including necessary shareholder support, to reinforce MDB resources.

Commitment to scale-up financing for development and capacity to achieve the SDGs by leveraging, mobilizing, and catalyzing resources at all levels.
Stepping up efforts to build a range of instruments that share risk in non-sovereign operations with private investors, including:
- syndications
- structured finance
- mezzanine financing
- credit guarantee programs
- hedging structures
- equity exposure
Working with public and private sector clients to create enabling environments for increased domestic and international investments.
Expanding policy guidance and technical assistance to support domestic resource mobilization.
Ramping up support to build data capacity to measure and monitor progress towards global commitments.
Many institutions have launched new project preparation facilities to build pipelines of well-prepared projects.
Continued collaboration across joint platforms on capacity building.

The 2030 Agenda is described as a “trillion-dollar one,” and official assistance flows will be nowhere near enough to finance it.
Meeting the SDGs will require a financing framework that channels more resources from more sources, particularly the private sector.
Requires enhancing existing partnerships and building new ones with the private sector—including institutional investors—to mobilize financing for development.
Reaffirmation of development institutions’ commitment to deepen and widen partnerships with both private and public sectors and bring in emerging and existing global, regional, sub-regional and national partner institutions to contribute to the success of the 2030 Agenda.