Daily Times

Securing the funding needed for sustainable development by involving as many actors from different sectors as possible, is more urgent than ever, amid a widening “trust deficit” between the haves and the have-nots. UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed said this while speaking at the Building Bridges Summit for sustainable finance in Geneva. She urged all those present from Government, the private sector, international organisations and civil society, to do more to push ahead with a common investment framework to improve people’s lives everywhere. “We need more ambition, more action, more scale, greater urgency in delivering the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement – and we certainly need more fuel, more financial resources and more investments,” she said. “The good news is that we already have a shared narrative or a linguistic bridge in the 2030 Agenda. But we still face a mismatch of metrics and languages between diplomacy and business; public and private actors.” Representing the Swiss federal government at the summit’s second iteration, Finance Minister Ueli Maurer highlighted its potential for concrete action, along with the need to be inclusive and transparent in the way that sustainable financing is handled. “I think Building Bridges, we have to do it between the population and the Government, we have to explain what we have to do,” he said.