LocationsOpening Remarks by Ms Beate Trankmann at the Billions to Trillions: Scaling Financing for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through New Partnerships – Blended Finance Roundtable Series
June 27, 2025
UNDP Resident Representative in China, Beate Trankmann, delivered opening remarks at the Billions to Trillions: Scaling Financing for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through New Partnerships – Blended Finance Roundtable Series in Beijing, China.
Mr. Peteris USTUBS,
Distinguished guests, colleagues and old friends and new,
Good afternoon! Welcome to this second Blended Finance Roundtable.
Time is money, for our planet. And time to save it by investing in it, is rapidly running out.
We have less than five years to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, and avert climate catastrophe. But we are nowhere near.
The first quarter of 2025 is expected to be the second-hottest on record. This is despite temporary La Nina conditions making life briefly cooler.
Just 17% of the SDGs are on track. Environmental goals are most behind.
Against this gloomy context, finance is widely recognized as perhaps the key enabler to turning ambition into action.
Spending to mitigate and adapt to climate change must surge significantly, and must surge now. Boston Consulting Group suggests a 9-fold increase is needed for mitigation, and a 13-fold increase for adaptation by 2050, to limit the rise in global temperatures to below 2 degrees within the century.
While this might sound like a lot, it is actually merely around 1 to 2% of the projected cumulative GDP by 2100. On the other hand, the cost of inaction could reach up to 27% of cumulative GDP.
So, the business case couldn’t be clearer!
"Time is money, for our planet. And time to save it by investing in it, is rapidly running out."
However, public funds are not enough to fill current annual financing gap of 4.2 trillion dollars, which widened in the aftermath of the pandemic particularly in low-income countries. This is exacerbated by shrinking ODA flows; while debt levels are rising, forcing many developing countries to spend more on debt servicing than on development. Meanwhile, economic instability is constraining access to capital markets further.
Against these headwinds, blended finance is an increasingly vital part of the solution. And will be central at the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) kicking off on Monday.
Using concessional, catalytic public capital to mobilize additional commercial capital towards sustainability, climate, and social targets would enable increasing urgent investments into development opportunities. And crucially: enhance the availability of financing without increasing the cost of capital.
It is encouraging to see many public and commercial institutions already taking significant steps in this direction: $249 billion in capital towards the SDGs in developing countries was mobilized via blended finance. Nearly two thirds of blended finance investors are commercial.
UNDP is actively exploring new opportunities around blended finance and de-risking mechanisms through new financing partnerships. For example, with multilateral development banks, we are working to co-design new bankable project pipelines, as well as aligning UNDP-managed grant funding with loan finance for greater combined impact.
These are only initial steps on a long journey, to financing a future on earth. But, we hope this roundtable can deepen our shared understanding of existing and new SDG financing opportunities.
I thank the European Union for their support, and all our partners here today for your commitment to development finance. Many thanks also to all who participated in the first Roundtable, and to those joining today for the first time.
Together, let's transform today’s talks into concrete actions that bridge the billions-to-trillions gap. And seize this window to invest in our planet, while we still can.
Thank you.
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