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Business leaders, government officials, UN delegates and
representatives
from civil society attended a launch event
for the
Sustainable Development Goals Fund (SDG-F)
new report,
“Business and the United
Nations: Working together towards the
Sustainable
Development Goals: A framework for Action”
which was produced with Harvard Kennedy’s School CSR
Initiative and Business Fights Poverty to examine deeper
engagement by the private sector in development.
Unlike other narratives, this report offers a unique private
sector perspective to provide insight and practical advice
on how companies can address the new 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development and at the same time work on
stronger co-creation and collaboration on development issues
with other development actors, including
the United Nations.
The SDG-F report is groundbreaking in that it builds on
lessons learned from the Millennium Development Goals, as
well as works to engage the private sector in the discussion
of what works, what needs to change, and how the
international development community must adapt. This
includes taking into account a set of recommendations that
offer a different perspective, critical to creating projects
that will be more sustainable and lasting for the ambitious
goals approved by the UN General Assembly this September. “Companies
want more transparency and a way to simplify the UN
engagement process, and foster a two-way dialogue,
especially at the country-level”, said
Paloma Duran, Director of the Sustainable Development Goals Fund.
Ambitious development agenda requires new types of
partnerships
It is estimated that achieving the SDGs will require
$3.3-4.5 trillion a year. As such, the scale of the new
development goals sees business as part of the solution and
offers a clear imperative for action. The report’s findings
suggest that companies want to be brought earlier into the
planning and co-creation phase of development projects and
would welcome clearer transparency in both the design and
exploration of opportunities in the field. The report
indicates that the UN can play an important role in sharing
best practices and facilitating business engagement across
sectors.
Included in the report are interviews with the SDG-F’s Private
Sector Advisory Group which
highlight the value of expanding multi-stakeholder
collaboration and leveraging the complementary expertise of
new actors. Inevitably, business matters for the SDG’s and
vice versa. With this in mind, there is a need for UN
agencies to create a clear entry point for country level
collaboration and simplify the process for two-way business
engagement, especially for purpose driven and system-level
platforms.
Agenda for action: inspire, connect, equip
The report includes a clear agenda for action: Inspire-Connect-Equip.
This section outlines what the UN can do to motivate and
mobilize many more companies to get actively engaged in
supporting the SDGs, how it can facilitate the process of
business engagement with UN agencies and other delivery
partners, especially at the country level with UN country
offices and in exploring both core and hybrid models of
development as well
as impact measurement.
Uniquely, the SDG Fund is already investing in 21 countries
engaging a wide variety of stakeholders. Created in 2014 by
UNDP on behalf of the UN system to support sustainable
development activities, it is the first SDG mechanism
working to implement programs at the country level. The Fund
works through joint programmes implemented by specialized UN
agencies with national counterparts. With an initial
financial contribution from the Spanish Government, the Fund
currently has 22 additional donors.
In key areas such as food security and nutrition, the SDG-F
brings together the expertise of varied UN agencies to offer
more robust approaches to development with clear linkages to
issues such as education, gender and economic development.
The SDG Fund’s specialized methodology helps to overcome the
limitations of the traditional one sector or “silo” approach
to development initiatives.
The SDG-F focuses on three thematic areas for poverty
eradication including, inclusive growth food security and
nutrition, and water and sanitation to address some of the
most important gaps in achieving progress towards the new
development goals. Equally important, all SDG-F programmes
embed three cross-cutting issues: sustainability, gender
equality, and public-private partnerships.
Participating in the new development agenda will require
greater collective action and understanding of the various
dimensions of how the UN can actively engage more creatively
with business and other partners. The SDG-F is actively
working to shape this new ecosystem and facilitate new
alliances with both the public and private sector with the
aim of supporting new learning and using this report as a
springboard to
continue this important dialogue.
To link to the report click here:
www.sdgfund.org/business-and-un
The Sustainable
Development Goals Fund (SDG-F) is a development cooperation
mechanism created in 2014 by UNDP, on behalf of the UN
system, with an initial contribution of the Government of
Spain to support sustainable development activities through
integrated and multidimensional joint programmes. It builds
on the experience, knowledge, lessons learned, and best
practices of the MDG experience, while expanding its
activities towards sustainable development and a higher
attention on public-private partnerships. Gender and women’s
empowerment is a cross-cutting priority in all our areas of
work. Follow on twitter at @SDGFund
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