Statement by Achim Steiner - Development Committee 108th Meeting - A Global Plan to Rescue the SDGs

Jul 19, 2026

Achim Steiner’s statement to the 108th Development Committee meeting argues that the SDGs are off track and require urgent course correction amid overlapping crises. It highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic, food and energy insecurity, inflation, debt distress, and climate impacts have erased decades of progress and widened inequality. The statement calls for closing the SDG financing gap through equitable, affordable, and stable financing, stronger social protection and universal health coverage, and an expanded, more effective World Bank and global financial architecture.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time10 min

A Global Plan to Rescue the SDGs

SDGs off track and development emergency

Bridge the SDGs Financing Gap

A Bigger and Better World Bank

Partnerships and improved coordination

Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE (Joint Ministerial Committee of the Boards of Governors ofthe Bank and the Fund on the Transfer of Real Resources to Developing Countries) ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH MEETING MARRAKECH, MOROCCO – OCTOBER 12, 2023 DC/S/2023-0054 October 12, 2023 Statement by Achim Steiner Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme United Nations U N I T E D N A T I O N S N A T I O N S U N I E S Statement by Achim Steiner Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme United Nations 108th Meeting of the Development Committee October 12, 2023 Marrakech, Morocco “The SDG Summit Declaration is a ringing endorsement of strong financing measures to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals.” Antonio Guterres, High Level Dialogue on Financing for Development, 21 September 2023 A Global Plan to Rescue the SDGs The SDGs are off track. The international community needs to correct course, urgently, to rescue them. Atthe midpoint of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, the world faces a development emergency. Only 15 percent of SDGs targets are on track and multiple Reports demonstrate that decades’ worth of development progress have been erased by the cascading crises of recent years. Wave after wave of crises –the COVID-19 pandemic, food and energy insecurity, cost-of-living and inflation, debt distress, the climate crisis—kicked-in a slow-moving pattern of divergence between richer and poorer economies. While the past 30 years the international community largely took for granted that faster growth in developing economies would enable them to sustain their development pathways and“catch up” with the life standards of advanced economies, we are witnessing the risks of development reversals, with a rise of poverty and growing inequality across and within countries. The macro-economic risks of climate change and transition pathways amplify these trends. It is increasingly urgent to tackle the structural imbalances in the global economy and in the international financial architecture, address the triple planetary crisis, and avoid the costs of fragmentation in the global economy and multilateral system. Achieving shared prosperity and sustainable development will require to focus policies and actions on expanding opportunities for the poorest and most vulnerable first, including through fostering job creation and women empowerment, strengthening social protection systems, basic service delivery and universal health coverage to enhance social inclusion. Bridge the SDGs Financing Gap Between 2020 and 2023, 165 million additional people fell into poverty because of the cost-of-living crisis and debt distress. The SDG financing gap has become a chasm, estimated at more than $4 trillion US dollars per year. 1 Over 40 per cent of people living in extreme poverty live in 52 countries in debt distress or at risk of debt distress.2 Developing countries need to augment resilient social protection systems, provision of basic services, and universal health coverage, whose long-term benefits outweigh the immediate costs, while many of them critically lack fiscal space and means of implementation. Rescuing the SDGs will require immediate steps to reduce the SDG financing gap: A large stimulus, an enabling environment, and an international financial system which provides equitable, affordable, and stable financing to respond to immediate crises and for long-term sustainable development. This effort will not start from scratch. The international community can build on the wide range of unprecedented actions taken over the last years – mobilizing all sources of finance, developing innovative instruments, addressing debt vulnerabilities, increasing liquidity for countries in need, support to countryowned financing frameworks, advancing towards a more inclusive and SDGs oriented international financial system

FAQs

Why does the statement say the SDGs need urgent rescue efforts?

It states that only a small share of SDG targets are on track and that recent cascading crises have erased decades of development progress, driving poverty and inequality upward.

What is the proposed approach to bridge the SDG financing gap?

The statement emphasizes immediate steps to reduce the financing gap through a large stimulus, an enabling environment, and an international financial system that provides equitable, affordable, and stable financing for both immediate crises and long-term development.

How does the statement describe the role of the World Bank?

It supports evolving toward a bigger and better World Bank, increasing development financing needs, expanding concessional resources, and strengthening the World Bank operating model to better connect outcomes to global challenges.

Jul 19, 2026

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