More than $9 trillion of global government debt is held in negative-yielding bonds, and as much as $50 trillion in citizen savings earns little to no interest. “We can choose to bemoan the lack of financing for the 2030 Agenda in a world awash with so much unproductive and unrewarding finance,” UN Secretary António Guterres said at “Financing the 2030 Agenda”at UN headquarters this week. “Or we can grasp the opportunity to reshape finance according to our urgent, collective needs.”
Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank, agreed, “If we have trillions in the financial system someone has to wake this money up.” Guterres pledged to make the 2030 global goals a central part of the G20’s global financial policies, to help countries attract and manage private investments and to champion financial system-change, including in fintech and climate finance.
Those efforts, Guterres announced, will roll into a finance summit in New York next September. One key area for action: illicit flows of capital. “I am convinced that today there is more money leaving a continent like Africa due to money laundering and tax evasion and illicit financial flows than the money that goes in through official development aid,” Guterres said.
The UN Environment Program has collected videos of speeches at the high-level event.
