Introduction:

The global development landscape has changed dramatically over the past decades. Multiple challenges, including climate change, the recent global pandemic, and geo-strategic tensions have all threatened the capacity of national systems to achieve SDGs and preserve their development gains. These challenges have resulted in disruptions in global trade, a significant increase in the cost of strategic goods such as energy-products and grain, and a gradual decline of FDI in developing nations. Additionally, many low and middle income countries have been forced to concentrate their public spending to mitigate the impact of such challenges, which came at the expense of public spending in human capital, particularly education, healthcare, and employment.

Traditional financing mechanisms alone are insufficient to meet the scale and urgency of prevailing challenges. The increased access to innovative financial solutions, such as blended finance, green bonds, social impact bonds, and debt-swaps and the introduction of country- led platforms that bring national developmental objectives to the forefront of implementable solutions have emerged as promising tools to address sustainability challenges. De-risking investments to developing countries is a key requisite for attracting private capital, resulting in not just increased financing in prioritized economic sectors but also allowing for the allocation of public spending to human development.

The global landscape of development finance is evolving rapidly. International Financial Institutions and Multilateral Development Banks play a crucial role in transforming the global financial architecture, mobilizing private investment, and enabling the transition from pledges to implementation. Multilateral Development Banks have been strengthening their cooperation, committed to work as a system, with the objective to maximize the impact for people and the planet. In 2023, for example, the World Bank Group and the IMF released a Joint Statement on Enhancing IMF-World Bank Collaboration, which clearly defines their commitment to help countries establish their country-led platforms to mobilize additional climate finance, including private capital. This commitment will be guided by the World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs), the IMF’s climate-related analytics, and countries’ own climate ambitions.

Multilateral Development Banks, including the EU’s European Investment Bank, are working closely with Egypt, UNDP and global partners to reinforce financial stability, respond to shared challenges and contribute to sustainable long term global growth and prosperity, resilience and peace. The United Nations has an indispensable role to play in such a context. As the largest multilateral development system it supports member states’ access to knowledge, technical assistance, and successful international experiences to maximize developmental impact and achieve the principles and goals of the UN Charter and the SDGs.

The role of integrated and innovative solutions, country-led platforms, sustainable investments, de-risking and innovative financing modalities, south-south and triangular cooperation, and extensive technical expertise, have become more important than ever for achieving efficient policy reforms and sustainable investments that widen the private sector participation in the developing economies and emerging markets. Leverage analytics, technical assistance, just development finance, cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder approach and policy expertise are significant to ensure productive implementation of the national policies and development strategies towards a resilient and prosperous future.

Egypt, through its principled economic diplomacy and its recognition of the importance of country-led platforms in accordance with the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), has committed to concrete transformative actions in the realm of financing for development. Egypt has taken considerable steps in enhancing the national development finance policies through various initiatives that are human-centric and address the multidimensional development challenges in a comprehensive and nationally-owned manner i.e. the Sharm El-Shiekh Guide Book for Just Financing, the Decent Life initiative, Takaful and Karama Program, and the Country Platform for the Nexus of Water, Food and Energy – NWFE Program, multiple debt-swap programs with bilateral partners, and the Hub for Advisory, Finance & Investment for Enterprises (ِفـز حــا منصة).

This comes in full alignment with the national commitments presented by Egypt during the SDG Summit in 2023. This also comes in-line with the country’s 2023-2027 Strategic Cooperation Framework with the UN (UNSDCF) and its commitment to financing the SDGs through various means including the Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF), which the government of Egypt has committed to implement with the United Nations in 2020, laying out the means of financing its national priorities by 2030.