AfDB, other Multilateral Development Banks commit to support SDGs
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have committed to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The MDBs made the commitment at the United Nations General Assembly in New York when world leaders endorsed new SDGs, an agenda that aims to end poverty, promote prosperity and to protect the environment.
The more than 190 UN member countries signed to approve the following 17 goals:
Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
The MDBs represented by their respective heads are the African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank (EIB), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank Group, and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“The African Development Bank is fully committed to the successful implementation of the SDGs. We will work with our member countries, the private sector, civil society and other partners to deliver on the SDGs for Africa. The SDGs must work -and they must work for Africa,” Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President, AfDB said.
The MDBs in July 2015 at the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa, tabled plans to scale up their finance and support for countries seeking to achieve the SDGs, and pledged to increase their financial contribution to more than $400 billion over the next three years.
In her remarks Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF said, “The SDGs are ambitious, but achievable with determined implementation. We all have a responsibility to achieve these goals, at the country level and through our collective action at the global level. The IMF, with its 188 member countries, will play its part.”
Commending the international community for its decision to adopt the MDGs, which would be continued with the SDGs, Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group said “The international community showed wisdom and courage fifteen years ago in adopting the Millennium Declaration, which set out eight ambitious goals to improve the lives of billions and bring the world together in closer cooperation and partnership. We cut poverty in half five years earlier than the declaration’s deadline, so I am confident we can achieve the great aspirations of these new global goals – particularly the first, which is to erase the scourge of extreme poverty from our planet by 2030. We can, and must, end this terrible blot on our collective conscience.”
“We are committed to supporting the 2030 agenda and helping our member countries in achieving these ambitious new goals in Asia and the Pacific. We will increase our support for inclusive and sustainable development by up to 50 per cent from 2017 to around $20 billion a year. By 2020, ADB will double its climate financing to $6 billion a year, about 30 per cent of its overall financing. We will also increase cofinancing with other development partners, catalyze private sector investment, and help mobilize greater domestic resources,” Takehiko Nakao, President of the ADB
Sir Suma Chakrabarti, President of the EBRD who believes that he SDGs overlap with the core operations and strategies of the Bank, said, “As a development bank specialised in working with the private sector, the EBRD is well placed to support the delivery of an agenda in which private firms will play a key role.”
“The adoption of the SDGs shows our collective determination to safeguard the future of our planet. At the EIB we stand ready to work with our peers, other public authorities, and the private sector, and put our finance and expertise at work to support the implementation of the new goals,” the President of the EIB Werner Hoyer said.
“The well-being of our planet and its people are at the heart of the new goals. They point the way towards greater prosperity and equality and will ensure more robust and sustainable economic growth,” the Executives said.
By Emmanuel K Dogbevi