By Amina J. Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General
18 May 2026 - We have only four years to go before the deadline to deliver the SDGs. But today, we are moving backward: increasing fragmentation, rising trade barriers, heightened geopolitical tensions and conflicts, and widespread climate-related disasters all undermine SDG progress. Financing gaps are increasing, particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable countries.
The Sevilla Commitment, adopted at last year's Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4), provided us with a roadmap for overcoming these financing challenges. It also provided a much-needed boost to multilateral cooperation, at a time when many question its value. But for FFD4 to have a lasting impact and deliver on its promise, we have to see tangible progress in implementation.
This year's Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2026 of the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development provides a first assessment of these early implementation efforts. It shows that the shockwaves of instability are contaminating development prospects.
The report presents two important findings.
The first is the financing squeeze that the world's poorest and most vulnerable countries experience from every direction at once: falling aid, rising borrowing costs, structurally low tax revenue and private investment that falls far short of the scale the moment demands.
In 2024, debt service burdens reached 20-year highs in developing countries and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). More than 70 developing countries still collect tax revenue below the 15 per cent of GDP threshold identified in the Sevilla Commitment. ODA fell by 23.1 per cent from 2024 to 2025, the largest annual drop ever recorded.
These conditions could get worse if capital, trade and investment flows continue to be reconfigured along geopolitical lines. This is the second major finding. Already, geopolitical considerations are shaping economic relations and financial policies, with tensions diverting trade and investment, discouraging cross-border capital, and feeding higher volatility. The poorest countries are often most vulnerable to such shocks. The current conflict in the Middle East has generated violence and economic fallout across the region and the world. It has impacts on the cost of fuel, fertilizer and food – as well as trade, transportation, tourism, and finance. Government finances are stressed through rising energy costs, slower growth and currency depreciations – adding even more pressure to the debt burdens shouldered by developing countries.
Increasing fragmentation also hinders agreement on and implementation of effective multilateral responses to global sustainable development challenges.
However, the Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2026 also offers a path forward. It demonstrates that the full and timely implementation of the Sevilla Commitment can address the financing squeeze countries currently face and can help countries get back on track toward achieving the SDGs. To this end, the report sets out five priorities for the year ahead.
The first is to scale up the financing and investment needed to close the gaps, starting with the actions already agreed in Sevilla.
Second, focus policies and financing flows on sustainable development to maximize impact, aligned with country priorities. This should be the guiding principle, and the report is clear that this is a test for private capital mobilization in particular.
Third, invest in countries' resilience to protect development gains in the face of more frequent shocks. The Sevilla Commitment contains a long list of concrete capacity-building measures that need to move from paper to practice with urgency.
Fourth, strengthen multi-layered institutions and cooperation that hold the international system together. National investments in resilience must be closely linked with regional and global support, ensuring that external financing lines up behind country-owned strategies rather than around them.
Fifth and finally, continue to invest in multilateralism itself. Countries' sustainable development prospects still rely on a predictable, rules-based multilateral system. We cannot retreat from that commitment.
There is reason for encouragement within the report's findings. The 130 initiatives of the Sevilla Platform for Action give us a head start on implementation. These initiatives directly address 115 of the 280 actions in the Sevilla Commitment. More than three quarters of those initiatives have already reported concrete implementation progress.
The report is clear-eyed about the limits being set by the global context. The current environment will not allow us to move on every front at once, and some of the most consequential reforms require the kind of multilateral agreement that is harder to reach today than it was even a year ago.
On this path, this report provides a powerful compass to keep the momentum from Sevilla and stimulate efforts towards the implementation of the Sevilla Commitment. There is no time to waste. The work ahead of us will take political will, and it will take stamina. Division is loud right now; cooperation must be louder.