Countdown to funding the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030
Cuts to international aid threaten healthcare and emergency response in fragile countries
3,400 billion euros. This is the enormous annual funding shortfall that the world must bridge in order to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
In early July, in Seville, during the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, a package of 130 reforms and actions – known as the Seville Compromise – was approved with the aim of reducing this gap.
However, against a backdrop of growing conflicts and ever-increasing political and trade barriers, the prospects for a genuine revival of economic support for the Global South appear increasingly slim.
One of the most worrying signs came from the United States, which not only refused to sign the final document but also walked out of the conference. This is a significant absence, given that for decades the US has been the world’s leading donor of official development assistance, contributing between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of the global total.
This decision is not entirely unexpected: it follows the Trump administration’s decision to make a drastic 92 per cent cut to funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
