LocationsDevelopment on the front lines
Rethinking international finance for the SDGs
The world is experiencing more conflict than at any time since statistics began in 1946.
At the same time, official development assistance (ODA) has been dropping this decade, and the OECD predicts that it will fall back to 2020 levels in 2027.
These two geopolitical challenges are intertwined, and wars and conflicts are siphoning funding away from development.
Investing in development is the surest way to secure peace and stability in the long run.
Along with economic upheaval, record levels of migration and displacement and the worsening effects of climate changes are also increasingly forcing governments to choose between short term fixes and longer-term stability.
The war in Gaza has wiped out 22 years of progress in less than two years. The estimated cost of recovery is more than US$70 billion.
UNDP clears rubble on the roadway leading to Al Rasheed Street in Gaza City. The was has created 61 million tonnes of debris which must be cleared, crushed and repurposed.
UNDP believes this moment calls for reinvention rather than retreat. We are working to create greater effectiveness and deeper partnerships which focus on maintaining essential services for the world’s most vulnerable people.
New challenges
Abrupt changes in financing call for more strategic partnerships and investments.
In 2024, ODA fell to US$212 billion—7 percent below the year before.
The OECD projects a further contraction of between 9 and 17 percent in 2025.
There is now a US$4.3 trillion annual shortfall in SDG funding, with potentially devastating consequences for the world’s most vulnerable people.
Sub-Saharan Africa could see cuts in essential services of up to 28 percent.
Yet this scarcity lives in the midst of plenty. There is more than enough money to meet the financing gap—global financial assets exceed $600 trillion.
$4.3 trillion
SDG FUNDING GAP
$600 trillion
GLOBAL FINANCE ASSETS
The issue is not the absence of capital, but the absence of conditions that make it suitable for investing in developing countries.
UNDP is working to redefine ODA, boosting its catalytic role, strengthening institutions, and reducing investment risk, creating the optimal conditions for private capital to operate sustainably.
Bridging the gaps
The 2026 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development Follow-Up, meets in New York in April.
It builds on the momentum from last year’s landmark Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, where UNDP worked alongside Spain, Italy, Sweden and a broad coalition of partners to launch the Sevilla Platform for Action, translating the outcome document into concrete results on the ground. It also draws on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, which laid out a groundbreaking path to overhaul a system that is failing billions of people and pushing the Global Goals further out of reach.
The forum will review the role of private business and international trade as engines for development, while looking at debt sustainability, international financial architecture and development cooperation.
As ODA falls to its lowest levels in 30 years, UNDP is uniquely positioned to guide and inform this process and to identify the opportunities that might previously have been overlooked—to see crises as an opportunity to reimagine development.
Source: OECD DAC (Development Assistance Committee). 2025–2027 figures are OECD projections.
The best line of defence
“The message is very simple, the long term first, best line of defence for stability is jobs. It’s an economy capable of dealing with shocks. We are long standing partners with governments all over the world and the advice we give is don’t forego long-term development strategies. The cycles of the markets come and go, the cycles of geopolitics come and go, and countries have to own their own resilience.”
—Marcos Neto, UN Assisstant Secretary-General and Director of Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP
UNDP has a durable platform of support for governments and leaders as they navigate challenging new times.
Our work has long proven its effectiveness. Every development dollar attracts about $60 in investments aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
$1
INVESTED
IN DEVELOPMENT
$60
IN SDG-ALIGNED
INVESTMENTS
$1
INVESTED
IN DEVELOPMENT
$100
IN CRISIS
SAVINGS
And it costs far less to prevent crises than to manage their consequences.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that every dollar invested in development results in $100 in savings.
Our Integrated National Financing Frameworks support 86 countries as they align their budgets and financing with the SDGs and find billions of dollars in new investments.
The INFF Facility, a joint initiative with Italy, Spain, Sweden and Canada, the EU and UN partners, has already supported reforms that unlocked $16 billion in new financing across 17 countries.
We work with technical experts as they design budgets and collect taxes for the SDGs.
And we assist countries who are looking to finance climate action and foster biodiversity.
As countries scale up climate ambition, the financing gap remains a critical barrier. We help governments access and align diverse sources of climate finance, including domestic funding, international funds and private investment, to implement climate action and protect biodiversity.
Investing in peace
We have seen that development is not separate from geopolitics. Investing in development is also investing in peace.
UNDP increasingly operates on the frontlines of global stability. Our work builds real security through strong and trusted partnerships, resilient systems and functioning institutions that equip societies to withstand shocks.
Societies are more stable when young people have jobs, when markets function and infrastructure works. When those foundations collapse, crises escalate quickly.
Our work has shown that hard power is not just the capacity to react. It is the capacity to prevent. Integrating development into the geopolitical debate is not idealism. It is strategic, budget-conscious realism. We can pay up front for development, or we can keep paying the bill later, with interest, in a more unstable and insecure world.
“The moment calls not for retreat, but for reinvention. Greater effectiveness, greater leverage, deeper partnerships.”—Marcos Neto, UN Assisstant Secretary-General and Director of Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP
