By Daniel Nardin 

Time is running out to achieve the goals of the so-called 2030 Agenda and the cost of global survival has never been higher. This is one of the central points of the final document of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF 2026), held at UN Headquarters in New York. HLPF ended last Wednesday, 15 July.

The document is jointly signed by the summit of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), ministers and senior representatives from around the world. In the text, the leaders admit that, despite progress, the pace of progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is “severely off track”.

At the center of the debate is an unprecedented financial “abyss”: global leaders now estimate that the deficit of resources for sustainability goals has reached the mark of 4 trillion dollars per year, especially affecting developing countries.

In the sixth paragraph of the document with more than 60 items, the global leaders of the UN Members state that “we recognize that progress in achieving sustainable development in its economic, social and environmental dimensions is severely off track. We are running out of time to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.”

“Despite the significant efforts of the international community to respond to the recent and multiple interconnected global challenges, the gap between our sustainable development aspirations and the financing to achieve them has continued to widen, particularly in developing countries, reaching about 4 trillion US dollars annually.”

The topic of financing was addressed in different panels and debates throughout the meeting. The general coordinator of the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education, Andressa Pellanda, demanded in one of the plenary sessions focused on education a fairer international financial architecture – including recommending mechanisms to suspend the payment of the day life of these countries. Andressa highlighted the urgency of an effort based on reducing inequalities, fiscal justice, and strengthening public funding for social rights, especially public education.

Financing is the basis for improving indicators in the Amazon

For territories such as the Amazon, located in the global south and spread with different contexts across nine countries (Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana), the financial deficit represents a direct barrier to combating the interconnected crises mentioned in the HLPF outcome document, who mentioned the impacts and urgent actions to reduce biodiversity loss, reduce pollution, food insecurity and cope with the impacts of climate change with adaptation.

Among the 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), the final document of the meeting of global leaders highlights three axes that are priorities in this final stretch until 2030. The three fronts include the social dimension, with the eradication of poverty (SDG 1), fight against hunger (SDG 2) and gender equality (SDG 5). Another urgent area of action addresses the environmental dimension, which in addition to tackling climate change (SDG 13), includes sustainable water management (SDG 6), protecting biodiversity and combating desertification (SDG 15).

Finally, the manifesto also mentions the economic dimension, with inclusive industrialization, resilient infrastructure (SDG 9) and decent work (SDG 8). A cross-cutting agenda that considers actions that contemplate different SDG goals is one of the paths pointed out by those who live and work in the territories. 

During the Amazon Climate Week, held in Belém in early July, Sineia do Vale, coordinator of the World Forum on Climate Change of Indigenous Peoples at the UNFCCC and the Indigenous Committee on Climate Change (CIMC), highlighted that Indigenous Peoples need to participate in the construction of climate solutions from the beginning and recalled that the protection of Indigenous lands benefits the whole of society, but that this requires more investment and direct financing.

“When we have work done with the science of Indigenous Peoples, it is not just for us, it is for the whole planet,” she said, who is the Special Envoy of Indigenous Peoples for COP30.

Sineia said that several initiatives are already being led by Indigenous Peoples themselves, including the production of their own climate adaptation plans and recommendations for the road map on fossil fuels.

For this reason, she argues that it is necessary to prepare Indigenous organizations with administrative and financial capacity to access new international financing mechanisms, such as the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF).

Also during the Amazon Climate Week, Aurélio Borges, director of the Association of Remaining Quilombo Communities of Pará (Malungu), reinforced that the fight against deforestation involves guaranteeing land rights.

Aurélio also reinforced the difficulty of accessing financial resources aimed at conservation. According to him, there are funds available, but traditional communities continue to find it difficult to access these mechanisms. “Breaking the bubble of access to credit is essential to keep the forest alive.”

In practice, even simple initiatives that generate significant results come up against the difficulty of credit and financing. Among these measures is the expansion of the implementation of the so-called agroforestry systems (AFS), which combine the planting of different species and avoid opening of areas and deforestation with loss of biodiversity.

On the contrary, biodiversity is one of the inputs of this type of production in the interior of the Amazon. Thomas Patriota, head of the Special Advisory Office for International Affairs at Brazil’s Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming, mentioned during Amazon Climate Week some public policies that can contribute to more sustainable land use, such as the National Program of Productive Forests and the Program of Productive Backyards.

“With the national program, we were able to increase from 40 thousand families to 1.8 million families that work with SAFs [Agroforestry Systems] in 10 years. Agroecology does not need to be simply a small marginalized niche, but must compete with the conventional system of agriculture”, he reinforces.

To further expand this type of initiative, which guarantees food on the table of Brazilians without having to deforest, the representative of the Ministry defends guaranteeing various types of financing and making available seeds, seedlings, bioinputs and machines adapted for agroecology, promoting sustainable chains that “rediscover traditional knowledge”.

This article was originally published on https://www.amazoniavox.com/noticias/view/666/en/global_leaders_estimate_4_trillion_needed_to_accelerate_sustainable_development_goals