Side-Event at the 1st Sherpa Meeting of India’s G20 Presidency

Statement by Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of UNCTAD

Transforming Lives at the Midpoint of the 2030 Agenda: Accelerating Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in an Era of Cascading and Multiple Crises

I am honoured to be with you at such an important meeting, at the start of the Indian G20 presidency.

The world, and especially the Global South, has high hopes of India’s stewardship of the G20.

I want to thank Sherpa Amitabh Kant, whose reputation for action and results precedes him.

I also want to salute my dear friend Susana Malcorra, a recognized leader of my region in my home region.

Dear friends,

We are on an era of cascading crises. COVID, climate change and the cost-of-living crisis are all increasing poverty and hunger at alarming speed. Geopolitics, not economics, is now at the driving seat of globalisation.

Now, cascading crises mean cascading inequalities.

We saw this all too crudely during COVID. Almost everywhere one looked, gaps that were already too wide, got wider.

This was true for gender gaps, for rural-urban gaps, for wealth and income gaps, for digital access gaps, for formal versus informal employment gaps.

Inequalities makes us fragile, closing gaps builds resilience.

And there is no better way to close gaps collectively, inclusively and sustainably, than through the seventeen SDGs that all countries in the world agreed to seven years ago.

The 2030 Agenda remains the only truly global, win-win agenda we have left in an ever- fragmenting world.

So to accelerate the SDGs, we need three things.

We need, first of all, investment of the right scale and magnitude – developing countries face a yearly SDG funding gap of around $4 trillion, up from 2.5 trillion when the 2030 Agenda was approved.

The only way to close these widening gaps is by using all the tools we have, and making the international financial system fit for purpose.

Here, the G20 holds the key for action and change.

We need to work in three areas: liquidity (through Special Drawing Rights), investment (through more involvement from the private sector and more funding from Development Banks), and a debt framework that tackles the unbearable debt burdens that many countries are suffering in the global south.

In this last regard, we are proposing to this year’s G20 an Independent Review of the G20 Debt Agenda, to fast-track the debt reform process which is now stalled.

Second, we need to embed SDGs in our government’s national development strategies. Susana will speak about this so, I will leave it for her to elaborate.

And third, we need to innovate.

India has shown the way of what digital technologies can do to turbocharge development.

This G20 Sherpa track wants to provide a huge contribution to this debate, from the angle of Data for Development. This is a very welcoming decision.

In our latest UNCTAD's Digital Economy Report, we highlighted the problem of the rising fragmentation and widening divides of the data landscape. To close the digital gap, we need to also close the data gap.

Because the only way to leap frog is through digital technologies that are accessible and empowering to all (in finance, in health, in education, in local government, in e- commerce),

Mr. Sherpa, dear friends,

India’s G20 Presidency, and all member countries can count on our collaboration and commitment.

Together, we stand a chance.

The G20, can provide important answers to our problems. Time is running out. We must not delay.

Thank you.