Money for Good
6 years, 5 months, 9 days, 10 hours
13 February 2023
The world does not, I would argue, lack the money to deliver the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The problem is rather that not enough of the money that the world does have is directed to them.
For the most part it is assumed that the SDG’s are something for governments to worry about, because clean water, sufficient food to feed your population, gender equality in society and access to good education for all (to name just a few) are clearly public policy goals. But governments, especially in emerging markets where the need is greatest, have never had sufficient fiscal firepower, even before fighting the pandemic impoverished public purses everywhere. According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the financing gap to achieve the SDGs increased by $1 trillion per annum as a result of the pandemic, to $3.6 trillion per annum. Now we have to factor on top the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on energy and food prices that have inevitably hit the most vulnerable hardest.
$3.6 trillion per annum sounds a lot. But with global GDP now around $100 trillion, $56 trillion of value in pension assets (c$21 trillion public and $35 trillion private), and $11 trillion in sovereign wealth fund assets (based on the most recent estimates I could scrape from various hopefully reliable sources), it seems clear it is not impossible to invest that much in securing a basic quality of life for everyone, if we put our mind to it.
One organisation that is focussed on doing just that, and I was delighted to learn about earlier this week, is the AVPN (Asian Venture Philanthropy Network). Backed by seriously big names such as Google, Macquarie, Microsoft, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the AVPN’s mission is ‘to increase the flow and effectiveness of capital deployed towards closing SDG gaps in Asia’.
The AVPN are focussed in particular on climate action, social impact and gender equality, and they regard collaboration, leadership, empowerment and urgency as key.