From Grants to Capital Gains: What We Learned About Making Finance Work for the SDGs
Over the past few years, the Joint SDG Fund tried something ambitious: use UN funds not as traditional grants, but as strategic investments to unlock much larger pools of private and commercial capital for sustainable development. In partnership with UN entities, we deployed $70 million across nine countries—from North Macedonia to Kenya, Zimbabwe to Indonesia—to test whether smart financial design could bend capital markets toward the SDGs. The results were striking. In Indonesia, the Fund helped structure over $5 billion in sustainable bonds.
Development Emergency Modality Dashboard: Visualizing the progress made against the Global Cost-of-Living Crisis
The Joint SDG Fund activated its Development Emergency Modality in June 2022, upon guidance of the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General and the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance. To date, the Fund has provided $22 million to 85 UN country teams that were most exposed to the global knock-on effects of the conflict in Ukraine to support an immediate and cohesive UN response under the Resident Coordinators’ leadership at the country level.
