SDG 17 and interlinkages with other SDGs – Partnerships for the Goals
Unlocking investment in the SDGs

8 July 2024, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM, Conference Room 4
Intervention delivered by April Porteria
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development & Asia Pacific Regional CSO Engagement Mechanism


Thank you, Chair. I’m speaking on behalf of APRCEM to highlight the glaring gaps in the achievement of the SDGs in Asia and the Pacific, citing the latest UN ESCAP Progress Report that achievement of the SDGs is not possible until 2062 –that is 32 years behind schedule, and a reality shared by other regions around the world. 

In particular, progress in Goal 17 is slow. In the past couple of years, many countries in the region have increased debt obligations due to pandemic-related borrowing. There is also a decline in ODA with many donor countries failing to uphold their historical commitment towards development assistance. 

 

There are also widening inequalities with increasing illicit financial flows, tax evasions, trade mispricing and profit shifting by big corporations continuing a history of extraction from the global South. And meanwhile, there is the huge financing gap of 4 trillion dollars per year for sustainable development for developing countries globally. 

 

Unfortunately, foreign direct investments, Public Private Partnerships and blended finance are continued to be promoted as solutions to this financing gap, failing miserably both in terms of adequacy and quality of aid, and in the absence of accountability mechanisms further endangering democracies and human rights, especially in the global South. 

 

In this regard, we emphasise the following recommendations:

  1. First, we call for a meaningful engagement of right holders across development agenda processes, and challenge the “networked multilateralism” approach that is becoming an entry point for big corporations’ presence at the table. 
  2. We demand cancellation of illegitimate debts and the much needed rechannelling of public funds to basic social services, women’s human rights, and ending of austerity measures designed to affect the most marginalised. 
  3. We also call for a genuine and just UN Tax Convention Framework to address illicit financial flows, and curb human rights violations by big northern transnational corporations in the global South. 
  4. And lastly, we call on governments from the global North to scale up development and climate financing, and provide capacity building and technical support to accelerate the SDGs, especially ensuring policy coherence with the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development in 2025. 

 

Thank you!