Financing for Development: Progress and prospects

2016 was the first full year of implementation of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. Efforts have begun at all levels to mobilize resources and align financing flows and policies with economic, social and environmental priorities. Progress can be reported in all seven action areas of the Addis Agenda. Nonetheless, a difficult global environment has impeded individual and collective efforts, and many implementation gaps remain. The Addis Agenda provides a broad framework for individual actions and international cooperation to increase sustainable development investments. Its rapid implementation can stimulate global growth and advance the world toward achieving the SDGs, and therefore is more important than ever.

The challenging global environment in 2016 had significant impacts on national efforts to implement the Addis Agenda. This includes not only economic factors, such as challenging macroeconomic conditions, a large drop in commodity prices, decelerating trade growth, and volatile capital flows, but also humanitarian crises. Despite improvements projected for 2017 and 2018, the current growth trajectory will not deliver the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. Least developed countries will fall short by large margins.