With an annual Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) financing gap estimated at more than $4 trillion, global growth projected to expand by only 2.6 per cent in 2026 and over 800 million people still living in poverty, speakers today called for efforts to “double down” on translating global aspirations into tangible outcomes as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) opened its general debate.
Suela Janina (Albania), Chair of the Second Committee, thanking the previous Bureau for its work on its revitalization, emphasized that the body was beginning its work “at a moment of profound global challenge and transformation”, with the world “grappling with economic uncertainty and fragmentation, elevated debt burdens, persistent inequalities, climate change and widening development financing gaps”.
Rapid technological advances are affecting economies and societies. Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to reshape development pathways, affecting productivity, labour markets, public services, education, governance and deepening inequality.
Accenting the Committee’s “critical responsibility”, she noted the theme of its general debate, “Financing Sustainable Development in a Changing Global Economy to Accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals”, captures the urgency of our moment.
Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, noted that “the finish line of the 2030 Agenda is in sight”, but multiple intersecting crises are slowing progress across the SDGs. However, “data and country reporting also tell us that success is achievable when political will, targeted investment and strong partnerships align”.
The global economic landscape is volatile, with trade fragmentation, conflict in the Middle East and climate disruptions weighing heavily on developing countries. “While a severe downturn has been averted, DESA’s [the Department of Economic and Social Affairs] latest projections are that the global economy will grow by just 2.6 per cent in 2026 and 2.9 per cent in 2027, well below the pre-pandemic average,” he warned.
Success requires advancing implementation of the Sevilla Commitment’s debt agenda and strengthening the global financial safety net; expanding access to long-term, affordable financing and scaling up multilateral development bank lending; and boosting domestic resource mobilization.
Financing, Debt Challenges Threaten SDG Progress
Professor Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue of Cornell University, delivering the keynote address, reiterated that shifts in donor priorities, limited fiscal space and debt have left “large financial gaps that are estimated to be about $4 trillion annually”, with only 36 per cent of the SDGs on target. Narrowing these requires mobilizing “far more resources than we do today” and designing systems that “make those resources count”, he stated.
Achieving “this quantum leap in both the volume and the efficiency of our financing” requires addressing four main points: which SDGs are priorities today; which entry points or policies afford maximal effectiveness; which financial instruments can be mobilized; and which people and institutions will “lead the charge”.
“Diversification is the name of the game” in funding, he stressed. The 17 SDGs require coordinating many financial instruments. Citing “a range of arguments from moral and humanitarian to economic and political to existential”, he emphasized that global poverty “is the legacy of past exploitation and extraction, and so international cooperation is a form of redress”. While “instability anywhere is instability everywhere”, the Committee must look “beyond 2030 to how the world will look by the middle of the century”.
Developing Countries Call for Greater Access to Finance
As the floor opened further for debate, delegates for groups of States and regions called for greater attention to lagging goals. Sounding an alarm, the Gambia’s delegate, speaking for the Group of Least Developed Countries, warned that 42 per cent of those populations continue to live in extreme poverty. Those States’ share of global exports of goods and commercial services remain at only 1.03 per cent, and in 2025, “just 33.7 per cent of our population used the Internet”. Development partners must fulfill official development assistance (ODA) commitments of 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of gross national income and expand concessional finance.
Uruguay’s delegate, speaking for the Group of 77 and China, noted countries continue to face persistent mutually reinforcing structural challenges, urging the international community to respond through strengthened cooperation, solidarity and multilateralism. Echoing, the Philippines’ delegate, speaking for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), called for a “future-ready economy for the region”. Meanwhile, the representative of Palau, speaking for the Alliance of Small Island States, warned of debt-service burdens at two-decade highs and the “problem of where finance flows, on what terms and according to whose measure of need”.
Jamaica’s representative, speaking for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM),noted his small island developing country lies in “the second most disaster-prone region of the world” — with worsening climate change often requiring CARICOM States to divert investments and scarce resources earmarked for sustainable development “to address a climate crisis that we did not create”. He urged for the operationalization of the multidimensional vulnerability index and measures of progress that go beyond gross domestic product (GDP). The European Union’s delegate urged the Committee to “double down” on tackling the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
Namibia’s representative, speaking for the African Group, lamented “insufficient representation in financial decision-making”, calling for implementation of the Sevilla Commitments and international cooperation against illicit financial flows, while Turkmenistan’s representative, speaking for the Group of Friends of Sustainable Transport, called for a “joint atlas of transport sustainability”.
Delegates Stress Human Security, Discuss Committee’s Role
Australia’s delegate, also speaking for Canada and New Zealand, stressed that “our families, our communities and our economies are stronger when all women and girls are safe” and empowered to achieve their full potential. Similarly, Costa Rica’s delegate, also speaking for the Group of Friends of Human Security, Japan and Senegal, asked delegates to imagine a young girl who has survived years of conflict and earthquake, lost her home, school and documents proving her legal identity. “How can we tell this girl to wait in separate, bureaucratic lines — one for water, one for medicine and another for her legal identity? We cannot rescue a child’s dignity in silos.”
Offering a different perspective, the delegate of the United States insisted that the body’s mandate has its limits and “the UN must stop playing shadow regulator” of international financial institutions and sovereign national regulatory bodies.