$50bn SDG-targeted investment proposals at SDG Investment Fair

24 / 04 / 2024

By Marwa Nassar - -

Over 100 SDG-aligned projects with a total investment scope of $ 50 billion have been presented during the 2024 Sustainable Development Goals Investment Fair (SDG Investment Fair) which is held on April 23 through 25 at the United Nations headquarters.

The SDG Investment Fair provides a platform for connecting investors, private and public institutions, and UN representatives to build collective action to reach the 2030 SDG Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals through concrete investment opportunities.

Launched in 2018, the SDG Investment Fair has evolved from an annual event to a year-round platform. The Fair’s principal component involves organizing 1-2 annual events, which enable countries to present investment projects that advance their SDG Agenda directly to potential investors.

The 2024 Fair features dedicated networking sessions for direct interaction between high-level government officials attending the ministerial meetings and private investors, financial institutions, and other stakeholders. The agenda will also include presentations of SDG-aligned investment projects and substantive discussions on developing more bankable SDG investment pipelines and recent innovations in financing approaches.

During the inauguration of the forum, EIB Group President Nadia Calviño said “Today’s SDG Investment Fair provides a platform to see how to mobilize the necessary investment to reach our ambitious goals, engaging the energy, capital and creativity of the private sector.”

“It’s not just a matter of catalyzing the private sector. The private sector is mobilized. It is very interested in how to deepen our partnership and ensure we can reach the necessary investments for these very ambitious goals,” he said.

“Private sector mobilization is very high on the radar of the world’s multilateral development banks. Actually, mobilizing private investment is one of the five concrete actions that we discussed, that we agreed to move ahead with during the Spring Meetings,” he added.

Another promising area is to expand and share data on risks and opportunities in emerging markets. The 20 MDBs that are part of the Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs) Consortium, will now publish default and recovery and this is extremely valuable information for the private sector supporting investors to better assess risks and opportunities for investing in emerging markets, he said.

“In parallel, we will continue to look for creative ways to support private sector SDG-related investments,” he asserted.