Watch the video here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/downloads2.unmultimedia.org/public/video/ondemand/2711639_MSG+DSG+MOHAMMED+SDG+FUND+23+FEB+22.mp4

Excellencies, colleagues, friends. I am pleased to welcome you to the development partner retreat of the Joint SDG Fund.

With nine years to go, it is abundantly clear that we are far from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a severe blow to already fragile progress – with the first rise in extreme poverty in two decades; the loss of jobs; widespread and possibly irreversible disruptions to learning; and a push back on the all-too-slow progress previously made towards gender equality.

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution continue to threaten our long-term resilience. 

Meanwhile, developing countries’ path to an inclusive and sustainable recovery is severely hindered by vaccine and fiscal inequities.

At the General Assembly informal consultations on Our Common Agenda, Member States were clear in their ambition to accelerate SDG implementation, using Our Common Agenda as an effective booster to recover lost ground.  

The Joint SDG Fund has the potential to deliver on that objective, bringing the scale and ambition needed to support countries’ just transitions in the Decade of Action.

It has already proven to be effective in stimulating collective UN action to support the Sustainable Development Goals, and in ensuring that finance is channelled where it is needed most.

The latest example of the Joint SDG Fund’s expanded reach and potential is the announcement last week of $54.5 million in investments in Kenya, Madagascar, North Macedonia, Suriname and Zimbabwe in the Joint SDG Fund catalytic investment portfolio, bringing a potential US $5 billion toward the SDGs across 10 programmatic countries.  

Thanks to your support, the capitalization of the Joint SDG Fund has reached $223 million since its inception.

This is impressive, but remains far below the $US290 million annual level set out by the Secretary-General and Member States in the Funding Compact.

This retreat is a unique opportunity to reflect on how we can build on results achieved to enable the Joint SDG Fund 2.0 to reach its full potential and help deliver the scale we need in SDG investments across developing countries, learning lessons from the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund and leveraging its integration into the Joint SDG Fund. 

I wish you a successful meeting.

Thank you.