There are key intersections between the major global commitments made in 2015 and 2016: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS). In this working paper, we identify the ways in which these three agendas can – and must – come together to create a more effective and coherent global framework for development, with a focus on finance, data and governance. Each of these is then explored in a focused briefing paper.

Key messages:

• The commitments made from the SDGs, the Paris Agreement and the WHS hold the potential to remake and modernise the way conflict, climate resilience, fragility and poverty are tackled on a global scale.
• Implementing these global agendas will need new governance structures at all levels, and to look beyond states in favour of networked approaches to governance that strengthen civil society and business involvement.
• Institutional fragmentation undermines all three agendas. There is a priority to reduce fragmentation and improve coherence across the international development system through ‘leaving institutional divides behind’.
• Financing is a key point of intersection. International finance institutions and new private sector actors must continue to engage in finance raising and setting better finance tracking mechanisms, while working toward transforming and greening all financial flows.
• Data gaps exist for achieving all three agendas. Harmonising existing and new data efforts to fill in the gaps, will help to facilitate informed debate about where progress is being made and how progress can be accelerated.