https://feature.undp.org/4-trillion-dollar-challenge/index.html

https://sdgfinance-report.undp.org/

INTRODUCTION

The current financial system–emphasizing shareholder profits over social and environmental sustainability–has created vast inequalities and environmental degradation on a scale unseen in human history. The perfect storm of climate, economic and debt crisis has reached a tipping point as trust in governments and global institutions breaks down. The resulting fiscal crises, spiralling debt levels, opaque tax systems, and gaps between national budgets and public expenditures necessitate an urgent rethink of global financial systems and the benefits they confer.

At the same time, governments and private-sector actors have made enormous progress adopting greener, socially equitable and more sustainable practices. Despite flagging commitment to formal global compacts for achieving the SDGs, climate and environment targets, there is no going back to unsustainable financial models that concentrate wealth in the hands of a few while neglecting the majority of people and the ecosystems on which our lives depend.

In line with the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) hosted by Spain in summer 2025, UNDP is leading an expanded agenda for change, involving governments, development and finance institutions in reforming the global sustainable finance architecture. This includes supporting the issuance of SDG-aligned bonds, channeling taxation to SDG investments, building bankable pipelines of SDG-linked projects (and measuring their impacts), and reducing the risk of SDG investments.

By using our expertise and funds to leverage financing for sustainable development – and advocating for our partners to do the same – UNDP is reshaping both the global development and financing landscapes. Through the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group, the Task Force on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures, and other global partnerships, we are working to solve some of the toughest challenges the world is facing right now.

The $4 trillion challenge

Four ways UNDP is helping to finance the Sustainable Development Goals