This seventh edition of the Financing the United Nations Development System report arrives at a moment when the UN system is facing unprecedented challenges. Climate change, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing inequality, and armed conflicts are placing inimitable demands on the multilateral system. For the international community, then, it is Time to Meet the Moment through quality financing of multilateral approaches to development. Only then can a shared aim of promoting prevention, mitigation, resilience building and emergency preparedness be met.

Mobilising the quality, unearmarked multilateral finance needed to address these challenges calls for clarity and transparency. Towards this end, the financial data explored in Part One of this report aims to demystify the complex funding dynamics of the UN development system and how they feed into financing flows for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Building on this, in Parts Two and Three the report presents a comprehensive selection of contributions from experts – including UN professionals (present and former), and representatives of think tanks and Member States – reflecting on the emerging trends, risks and opportunities apparent in multilateral financing. In doing so, the report provides a point of departure for forward-looking conversations both on how the UN system ought to be funded and how it could leverage this finance towards meeting global needs and goods, all the while building forward better from the COVID-19 pandemic.