Where will Global South find its SDG funding?

The global financial system is in a real bind, because interest rates may be peaking, global debts are at record highs, and geopolitical and climate disaster risks are looming.

- ANDREW SHENG

The United Nations have been complaining that the funding gap for meeting their 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is around US$4 trillion per year, or roughly around 4 per cent of world GDP. In their August 2023 study on lifting economies out of poverty and deal with net zero transformation, McKinsey Global Institute estimated that to empower the underprivileged out of poverty and tackle net zero, the world would need investment to the order of 8 per cent of global GDP annually.

Although these numbers look horrendously high, McKinsey’s own estimates of the global balance sheet showed that funding for change is possible, provided the political will is there. Between 2000 to 2021, “the global balance sheet grew 1.3 times faster than GDP. It quadrupled to reach $1.6 quintillion in assets, consisting of $610 trillion in real assets, $520 trillion in financial assets outside the financial sector, and $500 trillion within the financial sector.”

The global financial system with roughly $500 billion assets ($486.6 billion according to Financial Stability Board estimates) should not find funding of $4 to 8 trillion or 0.8-1.6 per cent growth annually impossible to achieve. The banks alone have $183 trillion in assets, the non-bank financial intermediaries $239 trillion, whilst central banks have $44 trillion.