Implementing the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals, Paris Agreement on Climate Change and World Humanitarian Summit commitments will require significant levels of finance. Seeking a transformation of the global economic and developmental paradigm, these three agendas aim to direct public, private and hybrid finance towards activities that are consistent with efforts to achieve low-carbon, climate-resilient, sustained economic growth and development. The agenda’s intertwined ambitions indicate that there must be a willingness to work across the humanitarian, development and climate sectors. Yet there is much work to be done to develop a coherent financing approach.

As part of the Our Shared Future project, this briefing paper outlines what we know about the financing targets and needs, where there is agreement between the agendas on financing issues and where tensions may emerge. It then outlines what needs to happen next if we are to deliver on the ambitious agendas.