By Judith Ugwumadu | 20 August 2014

Refocused public spending could free up $22 trillion each year to help deliver the United Nations’ goals of poverty eradication and environmental sustainability, an expert report submitted to the UN has said.

Members of the UN General Assembly yesterday discussed ways to finance its sustainable development agenda. It noted that: ‘With appropriate reallocation, a robust $22trn in annual global savings could meet the financing need for sustainable development in the future.’

The report, forwarded to the assembly by the Intergovernmental committee of experts on sustainable development financing noted that most resources were not allocated to where they were needed the most and that even a small shift in appropriations would have an enormous impact on improving lives and protecting the planet.

At the conclusion of its fifth and final session at the UN headquarters in New York, the committee acknowledged the analytic framework for financing sustainable development laid out in the report.

In order to meet diverse financial needs, the committee suggested an approach built on key principles, such as: the public sector’s central role and the importance of official development assistance; efficiently blending domestic, international, public and private financing sources; and mainstreaming sustainable development criteria in financing and implementing strategies

During the meeting world leaders also called for an ambitious long-term sustainability agenda to succeed and address the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which are to be achieved by 2015 – beginning with the eradication of extreme poverty.

Based on these principles, the committee recommended that a toolkit of policy options and financial instruments should be used within a cohesive national sustainable development strategy.

The committee said: ‘The choice of specific policy measures should be determined by domestic political considerations and other country-specific circumstances.’