27 September 2018: A meeting convened by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) in the margins of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly discussed the establishment of a global investor network that would advocate for the scaling up of long-term finance for sustainable development. DESA aims to launch the network in April 2019.

Providing opening remarks, DESA head Liu Zhenmin highlighted projected investment needs to meet the ambition of the SDGs, estimated at US$5-7 trillion per year. He cautioned that “the bulk of the required investment will need to be long-term,” and therefore the challenge is to engage actors that can provide such finance at scale, such as pension funds.

DESA envisions replicating the Swedish Investors for Sustainable Development (SISD) network at global level. The global network would align with the UN Secretary-General’s Financing Strategy, which was released in September 2019. It is intended to complement the SDG Investment Fair, which also was launched recently, and the UN Economic and Social Council’s (ECOSOC) Forum on Financing for Development Follow-up (FFD Forum).

DESA will contribute to the investor network as part of its work on closing the investment gap for the SDGs. Liu said he hopes to launch the initiative during the next session of the FFD Forum, in April 2019. [DESA press release] [Liu Zhenmin’s remarks]