Development financing is stuck amidst a time of immense need. With the COVID-19 pandemic and looming recession, the war in Ukraine and consequent supply chain and food shortages, rising debt distress, and the ever-pressing threat of climate change, developing countries face a multitude of overlapping crises.

How to get funding levels from billions to trillions was a major challenge. In the light of recent events, the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, we are witnessing a rise in poverty and inequality around the globe. This has further been deepened by the Russian aggression on Ukraine, rising interest rates and deteriorating credit markets in developing countries that is causing hyper-inflation and a high cost of living crisis.

In a world with many competing priorities, the investment resources needed for the climate transition are substantial. On the one hand, it is estimated an additional US$ 1 trillion per year will be needed by 2030 in external flows and private finance for emerging market economies (excluding China) to meet the projected investment needs and forestall the climate crisis. On the other hand, another US$ 1.5 trillion or more of domestic resources will be needed to complement external financing. It is important to understand that in many countries these domestic resources will come from taxation.

The world since 1990 has certainly been turbulent. In many contexts societies faced significant events with implications for the lives of millions of people. On another level there is also the proliferation of internal violent conflicts and the global financial crisis in the mid-to-late 2000s caused much upheaval.

Seventy-five years ago, amid the barely cooled embers of the Second World War, states signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a unique document which articulated a clear global commitment: never again. The UDHR was nothing short of miraculous in its recognition that human rights were the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world; universal, indivisible and fundamental across every divide – religious, cultural, geographic, environmental. Yet today, shocking disparities and global crises have destabilised this foundation.

Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right but also a crucial foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. Progress in achieving gender equality requires sustained and adequate financing. Change takes time, as mindsets and systems evolve and transform.

Humanitarian financing saves lives, supports human dignity and resilience, and helps to protect peace and development gains when disaster strikes. It is a fundamental global public good. Saving and protecting lives is nothing short of a race against the clock, often surrounded by massive uncertainty and volatility. It is the reason why the current approach is to make humanitarian action as anticipatory as possible, and only as reactive as necessary. Harnessing and converting funding into aid looks different in 2023 from what it did ten years ago. Data, money and collective action converge at the right time to maximise impact and avert worse outcomes. When crises are predictable, funding can be pre-arranged.

The annual Financing the UN Development System report prepared by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the United Nations Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTFO) has increasingly become the ‘go to’ report for those wanting to better understand trends in the overall financing of the UN System. It also provides key insights into development financing policy issues for the broader multilateral community.