On the sidelines of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, a meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Group of Twenty (G20) was held under South Africa’s chairmanship.
The meeting focused on budgets devoted to SDG commitments. With the deadline for achieving the SDGs fast approaching, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Sugiono warned G20 counterparts of an annual funding gap as high as 4 trillion USD. He expressed concern that this financial shortfall would prevent countries from fulfilling their SDG commitments by 2030.
Indonesia’s worries are well-founded, as many international financial institutions remain reluctant to fully support the commitments made by numerous countries.
According to UN data, the annual financing gap of 4 trillion USD represents only 1% of the global wealth.
Indonesia alone requires approximately 8.7 trillion USD to achieve its SDG targets by 2030, leaving the largest economy in Southeast Asia with a funding gap of 1.7 trillion USD.
The country has received aid and financial support from partners and international lending organisations to accelerate SDG implementation. In 2024, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a loan of 419.6 million USD to help Indonesia expand access to sanitation services at the local level.
Attending the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted that as many as 85% of SDG targets risk going off track. He emphasised that without solving the financial challenge, achieving the SDG commitments will remain beyond the reach of many countries worldwide.
President Ramaphosa highlighted that urgent issues such as low growth, high public debt, tightened financial conditions, and limited fiscal space are weakening countries, saying reforming international financial institutions, increasing non-refundable aid, and enhancing concessional funding are necessary.
Sharing concerns with the G20 group, Brazil — the host of the 30th UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) summit in November — also expressed worries that international lending institutions are withdrawing from financial commitments to support developing countries in climate change response.
Brazil, together with Azerbaijan, has initiated a campaign to mobilise contributions from international financial bodies, but commitments from these institutions remain very limited.
Although development banks have pledged to increase funding for climate action, current realities reveal a wide gap between words and deeds. This funding shortfall severely undermines developing countries’ recovery capacity and hinders investment in renewable energy.
COP29 Chair Mukhtar Babayev voiced complaints that only the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank have confirmed support, while others remain indifferent.
He recounted how Azerbaijan’s negotiating team once attended the 2025 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) to lobby for climate finance but described the financial institutions as very reluctant towards climate issues.
Although development banks have pledged to increase funding for climate action, current realities reveal a wide gap between words and deeds. This funding shortfall severely undermines developing countries’ recovery capacity and hinders investment in renewable energy.
UN statistics indicate that developing countries require about 1.3 trillion USD to implement green transitions and address worsening natural disasters. Meanwhile, at COP29 in 2024, wealthy nations only agreed to raise climate finance commitments to 300 billion USD annually from 2035 onwards.
Confronted with the financial gap for sustainable development and climate action commitments, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres compared global military spending, which surged to a record 2.7 trillion USD in 2024 — nearly 13 times the total amount of official development assistance (ODA). He called on countries to “save” on arms purchases to prioritise financing the fight against climate change and sustainable development.
