World leaders have made ambitious commitments to achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
However, securing enough resources remains a major challenge; with developing countries facing a gap estimated between 2.5 to 3 trillion dollars per year.
To help bridge this financing gap and speed up Ghana’s efforts to achieve the SDGs by 2030, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance has commenced the second phase of the Joint SDG Financing Component which seeks to develop financing strategies and enabling frameworks for SDG investments.
The second component of the Joint SDG Fund project involves investing in key initiatives that leverage public and private financing in order to advance the SDGs. These initiatives will provide a demonstration of the concept and will be scalable both in and out of Ghana.
The project is under the theme, “Accelerating the attainment of SDGs through Innovative Financing for Infrastructure”.
Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of Finance, Prof. George Yaw Gyan-Baffour outlining what the project seeks to achieve.
“The project aimed to bridge the financing gap in infrastructure which is considered the backbone of the economy. Resilient and sustainable infrastructure is required to accelerate the attainment of the SDGs for which innovative strategies are required to achieve this.”
The SDG Joint Fund project is also aimed at bridging Ghana’s housing deficit in the long term. Charles Paul Abani is the UN Resident Coordinator.
“UNICEF, UNDP and UNCPF will be working to look at the waste and sanitation sectors in particular to look at the innovative financing models and we hope that piece of work will generate as much as US$7 million of investment in the sector.”
He added, “UNOPS is also on the verge of launching a very significant affordable housing scheme which is bringing in significant resources, US$5.7 billion over the ten years that will really transform the affordable housing market, create job opportunities and rebuild some of the economic sectors.”