‘There’s a $4 trillion gap in development funding for poorer countries’

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Developed countries can no longer afford to be cautious in providing financing for achieving sustainable development goals, the UN’s resident coordinator in India Shombi Sharp said in an interview. Sharp said the world faces a $4 trillion financing gap for the SDGs and called for greater political will to provide this funding. Sharp said India was uniquely placed between developed and developing countries, which allowed it to deliver a consensus at the G20.

Edited excerpts: How do you assess the outcome of the G20 summit, particularly on climate change and SDGs? To achieve full consensus on the Delhi Declaration was something very impressive, given the incredibly divided world that we’re in right now. India is and has been truly uniquely positioned to deliver successful results in this particular moment in time. I’m not sure we could expect such a successful result from any other country.

India is really unique in the sense that it is equally comfortable and has equally strong bridges of trust in the G7 world and in the world of the advanced economies. India has also for a long time been sort of a voice of the Global South and knows very well the challenges of developing countries. India really was able to get compromises from all directions.

And that was a testament to its leadership. Has the G20 gone far enough in making financing available? A third of the countries right now are unable to mount responses because they’re buckling under the pressure of a financial crisis. Something like 730 million people in the world don’t have enough food to eat.