Blended finance mechanisms can potentially enable larger investor participation and help narrow the annual US$ 2.5+ trillion funding gap. However, in order to leverage more diverse financing flows for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN must create enabling environments – a key expectation of the Resident Coordinator (RC) function – while unlocking innovation and monitoring tools to measure impact.

This would open opportunities to catalyse private sector engagement, as witnessed in Kenya with the SDG Partnership Platform and subsequent successes. Private sector engagement will require prioritising collaboration and partnership building under the leveraging power of RCs and UN country teams.