On 1 April 2022, the Human Rights Council (HRC) concluded the longest session it had held since being established in 2006.1 The session took place against an exceptional backdrop of events that placed the HRC at the heart of multilateral diplomacy, at a time when other intergovernmental bodies were in stalemate. In response to rapidly evolving developments following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the HRC – taking upon itself a mandate for accountability – called for immediate de-escalation and respect for international humanitarian law.

The global outbreak of COVID-19 saw a dramatic backsliding in women’s labour force participation, a deepening feminisation of poverty, an escalating burden of unpaid care work, and an intensification of all types of violence against women and girls (‘the shadow pandemic’). Thus, now more than ever, prioritising gender equality commitments and mobilising financing for gender equality is vital to ensuring that the significant erosion of gender equality gains and women’s human rights is reversed, and that progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is put back on track. In short, building forward better demands a stronger and more concerted focus on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls.

Unlike previous United Nations reforms, the current reform of the UN development system (UNDS) squarely addresses the imperative of changing how the UNDS is funded in order to ensure it can respond robustly and predictably to countries’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) priorities without compromising the multilateral nature of UN support.1 Through the Funding Compact welcomed in 2019, both Member States and the UNDS recognised the necessity of addressing the sharp imbalance between core and non-core resources. Moreover, there was clear acknowledgement of the need to change funding behaviour, and especially to improve the quality of funding, if the UN is to deliver better results against the ambitious 2030 Agenda.

Speed, flexibility and accountability lie at the heart of the humanitarian pooled funds managed by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The creation of the funds – the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the country- based pooled funds (CBPFs) – date back to 2005, when the reform process aimed at improving humanitarian response effectiveness was initiated.1 Since then, the funds have become important lifelines for the most vulnerable, between them disbursing US$ 13.7 billion and supporting tens of millions of people.

In May 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Member States took the historic decision to increase the share of assessed contributions in the organisation’s regular budget from 16% to 50% by 2028. While future budget negotiations will show whether Member States honour their commitments, the political signal is clear. Member States want to provide a more sustainable financial footing for WHO which is currently overly dependent on voluntary earmarked funding, including from private actors. The pitfalls of (certain forms) of earmarked funding have been widely discussed, not least in previous editions of this report. Assessed contributions represent an important alternative route to sustainable financing for multilateralism as they cannot be arbitrarily withdrawn – they are membership fees that all states are obliged to contribute. Assessed contributions can also be re-purposed in line with an international organisation’s mandate and core organisational needs, thereby enabling the organisation to act more effectively, independently and with greater authority.

The global fragility landscape has worsened significantly in the last few years, impacting both low-income and middle-income countries. Violent conflicts have increased to the highest levels observed over the past three decades. In 2021, an estimated 44% of people below the poverty line were in countries on the World Bank’s fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) list.1 The world is also witnessing heightened geopolitical tensions – most notably the far-reaching impacts of the current conflict in Ukraine. Concurrently, the COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic impacts are increasing poverty and aggravating existing fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) risks, amid a context of rising food insecurity, natural hazards, and climate-related stresses.

These are uniquely unsettling times, with one of the most devastating consequences of the current moment being the erosion of hard-won development gains. The compounded crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, food and fuel insecurity, fiscal collapse, political upheaval, climate shocks and the war in Ukraine have stalled or reversed decades of progress. In such circumstances, the United Nations development system should not be subject to a stop–go edict that further contributes to this erosion while at the same time swelling the humanitarian caseload and costs.

In 1736, Benjamin Franklin proclaimed that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If that statement was true in 1736, it is even more so today in our world of compounding and cascading risks. Despite all the evidence that prevention works, however, we still seem incapable of properly financing it. Why not?

As an international financial institution (IFI) and United Nations specialised agency dedicated solely to agriculture and rural development, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is uniquely positioned for resource mobilisation. Its primary role is supporting people living in poverty in rural areas through the provision of loans and grants to member countries.These are no-strings- attached loans with favourable financial terms, such as long lending periods (eg a 40-year repayment timeline) and concessional interest rates. Repayment terms depend on the borrower’s capacity to service the loan, while great care is taken to ensure loans are not taken by countries that are unable to repay the principal back. Moreover, borrowers must meet internationally recognised debt distress indicators and projections criteria.

Over the last 50 years there have been a variety of successful efforts to scale up development interventions to a national, regional and even global level. Among public sector-driven initiatives, China stands out for its systematic scaling approach (eg the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project)1, as does India with its large-scale rural development and health programmes, and Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades conditional cash transfer programme.2 Among private sector-driven scaling successes, the IT revolution is perhaps most notable, including such innovations as the M-Pesa mobile payments system in East Africa3, while among non-governmental organisation-driven initiatives, the Grameen Bank and BRAC in Bangladesh are prime examples. Moreover, there are external donor-driven cases of successful scaling, such as the Green Revolution; the River Blindness Program in West Africa; the Global Fund-led fight against HIV- AIDS, TB and malaria; global vaccination schemes under the auspices of Gavi; and Global Financing Facility-supported health programmes.

In the seven years since the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we have witnessed a profound trend: the convergence between the worlds of development finance and private finance. Where once these two spheres stood apart – in philosophy, policy and parlance – today there is growing recognition that, even if their core missions fundamentally differ, each needs the other in order to deliver on their strategies and aims.

A central message of the 2020 Review of the United Nation’s Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA) was the need to secure adequate, predictable and sustainable resources for peacebuilding, with the twin resolutions adopted at the conclusion of the review calling for the convening of a high-level General Assembly (GA) meeting on financing for peacebuilding.

This article examine four international financing flows for the Sustainable Development Goals that have consistently decreased over recent years, with many countries now facing a ballooning debt crisis that could impede development efforts. While private financing is the largest contributor to development financing, it carries risk due to its procyclical nature.

Secretary-General António Guterres has convened several high-level events and set out a number of bold recommendations through ‘Our Common Agenda’, advocating for a UN that can act as a catalyst for a more inclusive, networked and effective multilateralism. This article looks at emerging good practices within the UN development system aimed at more effectively leveraging private sector financing for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Planetary imbalances engender risks that can cause shocks to human development, thereby exacerbating inequalities and constraining the space for deliberative reasoning and collective action. This article introduces the Anthropocene, conceptualises the climate risks involved, and discusses the importance of valuing the biosphere.

Strengthening and building partnerships in public–private alliances is becoming increasingly important. Despite this, unlocking private capital through public resources in a blended finance mechanism for development and peacebuilding is seldom acted on, as international investors are kept at bay by the perceived ‘high risk’ of fragile contexts.

Secretary-General António Guterres has embarked on an ambitious reform agenda, calling for a shift from response to prevention through cross-pillar strategies, increased donor support to the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), and strengthened UN system support for countries facing complex conflict risks. Spotlighting Colombia as a case study, this article shows how, in 2018, led by the Resident Coordinators Office, a pilot finance facility was successfully designed using the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund as implementing vehicle and the PBF as funding partner.

Vaccine supply remains constrained and is not in itself sufficient to end the current phase of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Despite never previously having had to deal with a challenge that has impacted every country in the world simultaneously, the UN has excelled in this crisis, with the World Health Organization, UN Children’s Fund and World Food Programme all playing strong roles.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the fundamental importance of strong health systems and universal access to quality health care. It has also highlighted the critical work of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the importance of the Triple Billion targets captured in its Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–25, as well as the organisation’s mission statement of ‘promote health, keep the world safe, serve the vulnerable’.

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.

Human rights financing faces longstanding underinvestment, which has created structural, contextual and political impediments. This third pillar of the UN system has seen its resources spread thin at a time when the UN’s human rights machinery is most needed. In 2021, just US$ 129.3 million – 4% of the overall UN regular budget (excluding humanitarian affairs) – was allocated to the human rights pillar. Further, due to liquidity problems affecting the UN regular budget, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) received only 75% of its allocation.

The UN of the twenty-first century requires greater flexibility and adaptability; revamped recruitment mechanisms; and new thinking around the sustainability and interoperability of different funding streams and the expertise and capacities they support. The peacekeeping budget and how it is funded has led to a longstanding divide between countries providing the bulk of personnel and those providing the bulk of finances.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only reinforced the importance of agreeing that certain critical global public goods (GPGs) should be available to everyone, everywhere, it has highlighted the spectacular failure of many countries – including those that have long advocated for provision of GPGs – to look beyond their own borders and ensure a fairer, more multilateral, GPG-centred normative approach.

Can vaccines be classified as a global public good? While the overall numbers of those being vaccinated are heartening, they are also heavily skewed, with 90% of this global drive confined to the European Union, along with 11 other countries. In Asia and the Pacific, the numbers vaccinated remain very low – given current rates, it will take bold new measures if global herd immunity is to be achieved by the end of 2022.

Long-term climate analysis and predication are essential for climate mitigation and climate adaptation. The earth’s weather and climate systems are globally interlinked – today’s weather in one location will influence the weather elsewhere on the planet, which is why investment in improved weather observation capacity in the Pacific Islands will have global benefits. As such, national weather observations that are shared globally represent a global public good (GPG), while improving observations in locations that fall short of the Global Basic Observation Network (GBON) will have considerable significance.

It is essential to complement traditional funding for peacebuilding with blended finance, which in turn can support employment generation, economic inclusion, and more equitable access to social services.

In addition to increased voluntary and assessed contributions, it is important that new financing options continue to be explored, and that efforts to generate adequate and predictable funding for peacebuilding be renewed.