 So welcome everyone to this webinar on SDG status and where we will discuss during an hour, particularly this issue around financing the sustainable development goals. This is an event which is organized by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network in cooperation also with the OECD Development Assistance Committee. My name's Guillaume Laforte and I'm the vice president of the SDSN and the head of our Paris office. And today's webinar is organized as an associated site event to Stockholm plus 50 conference which celebrates actually it started earlier today which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first UN conference on the human environment. And the event will feature the launch, the official launch of the 2022 sustainable development report. This is the seventh edition of one of the lead international reports that tracks every year the performance of all UN member states on the sustainable development goals. I see that we are now more than 400 on the Zoom link. We have also many, many people connected on YouTube. So it's great to see so many people online and interested to hear more about the sustainable development goals in these challenging context. A quick run through the program for today. So we'll start with our international expert panel and with a nice conversation between professor Jeffrey Sachs who's the director of the center for sustainable development at Columbia University but also the president of the SDSN. And with Susanna Moorhead who's the chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee. So we hope to have a good conversation on where we're standing on the SDGs but also what are the priorities in terms of the financing those goals. We'll move on to a brief presentations of the key results and findings of this year's sustainable development report before going to some country and regional perspectives. So we're delighted to have with us today Mr. Arsene Dansou, director general of the debt management office in the ministry of economy and finance of Benin. And also Simona Mariniescu who's the UN resident coordinator for Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue and Tukalau who will give us also a perspective from Small Island developing states. So before we jump into our first international panel a few words on housekeeping you have the possibility to answer questions in the Q&A. Now the agenda for today is quite packed so we'll do our best to take some of those questions. There is a team in the background that will try to answer also questions in writing especially those related to the Sustainable Development Report. We will try also after the webinar to follow up if there's any questions that remain unanswered and otherwise please feel free to reach out to us directly at info at unsdsn.org. So without further ado let's jump into our first panel conversation. Jeff Susana, we're delighted to have you with us today. Jeff of course, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia university president of the SDSN. Susana you're since 2019 the chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee and for those that might not be familiar with the OECD DAG this is a unique international forum that brings together many of the largest providers of official development assistance, ODA you have more than 30 years of experience in international diplomacy and development. So thank you to you both for being here today and maybe I'll start with an easy question to you, Jeff and I'd be grateful if you can try to answer in roughly four or five minutes so we can take a couple of questions and cover a number of issues in the next 20 to 25 minutes. So one of the big findings this year of the SDR 2022 is that basically there was progress on the SDGs from 2010 to 2019 and since 2020 basically the world on average is no longer progressing towards sustainable development. So what do we do from here, Jeff? Do we scale back SDG ambitions at midpoint to the way to 2030? Or do you think the opposite? Do you think it's actually time to double down SDG efforts and if it's double down then what's the main priority right now to restore SDG progress? Thanks a lot and great to be with you. Congratulations on the launch and Susanna thank you so much for joining the launch and for all that you do. We weren't making enough progress before 2020. So if you would ask me in 2019 or 2018 or 2017 the same question I would have said we should and can do more to accelerate and basically that would mean more ambitious investments in education, in the health sector, in a renewable energy electrification in sustainable agriculture, in urban infrastructure in digital infrastructure, do more, invest more more development aid if necessary more development finance through capital markets or the multilateral development banks but do more. Well then came 2020 with the pandemic and in 2022 even as the pandemic continues we have the war and the sanctions regime around the war in Ukraine. And this has been another huge, huge jolt. So we've had multiple crises of the last three years that have been added to an insufficiency beforehand. Of course it sets everyone back what should we do? Three things, first stop the war. The two sides need to negotiate an outcome. Nobody's gonna win this war on the battlefield before there's just unending destruction get to the negotiating table. This is the most basic point. Second, stop the pandemic. Now easier said than done but we will launch our Lancet commission report in a few months and what we know from the Lancet COVID-19 commission that SDSN hosted there's a lot more that we could be doing to get this pandemic over because that will also help everything not only avoid deaths of disease but also restore supply chains and global economic recovery. The third thing we need to do is increase development finance. And there this is Susanna's Bailiwick. 50 years ago, the rich countries promised 0.7 of 1% of their gross national income as official development aid. They never really reached even half of that. They're roughly at about 0.32 or 0.33 somewhere a little less than half of what they promised. The United States is a big offender of my own country because it doesn't give 0.7, it gives 0.17. That's a lot less a fourth of what we should be doing. So we need to honor a commitment that now is also its 50th anniversary. It's actually I think 51 years anniversary since the General Assembly adopted that. In addition to that, even on the non-ODA official development assistance part we need a lot more market financing and a lot more financing through multilateral development banks. I'll just end here by saying the sustainable development agenda is an investment agenda. Investment needs finance, you wanna succeed, increase the finance. Back to you Gio. Yeah, yeah, and we'll pick up on that and we'll go back to this in a second, but let's stay on ODA maybe for just a bit. So Susanna, you are the chair of the OECD DAC, the foreign that brings together the largest providers of official development assistance. I believe out of 30 members of the DAC, 24 are European countries. Priorities are shifting in Europe, increased inflation, budget pressures. We're talking even about stack inflation. Are you worried at all? And we've heard from Jeff that many countries already did not meet the 0.7% GNI target. Are you worried at all about the ability of DAC members in the coming years to continue to increase their commitments to support development in low income, lower middle income countries? Thanks, Gio. Yes, yes, of course I am. I mean, I think you'd have to be mad not to be worried. I mean, Jeff has talked about what, to be honest, feels like the four horses of the apocalypse on top of an already very underfunded but critical agenda. We've got, I mean, the immediate crises overlapping but also the longer term ones of climate. And we must have more resource. Now, speaking in a purely personal capacity because it's not the view of the DAC as a whole, I think resources to Ukraine should be additional to existing odor. I mean, odor is pretty much stable. It was about 179 billion in 2021. I mean, as Jeff said, we have a small but important and very generous club of 0.7 and above donors but many of our members are not yet at that. Already some have approved additional resources for Ukraine for which we're extremely grateful but I would be doing everybody a disservice if I pretended that there was not an enormous funding gap. So in the DAC, I mean, we will do everything we can. I think to make the political argument, I mean, that's the critical thing to make the political argument that we have to afford this. We often hear that we can't afford the SDGs and to increase odor. I would argue that we can't afford not to and I think the rising temperature geopolitically makes that argument even more persuasive. So even if you're not a development professional or a diplomat and you don't particularly see this as a priority, I think there is a growing case to recommit to the values that underpin the SDGs. I mean, these are not nice to have. I mean, as Jeff says, this is an investment in the future and in the lives and livelihoods of everyone. And I think, I mean, DAC members but the rest of the world, for the poorest people in the poorest countries in the world to be the hidden victims of Russian aggression is something that we have to avoid. But what I would also say is, you know, DAC members can't do it all. Others have to step up. Emerging donors have to step up. The private sector has to step up. I think the multilateral development banks need to be prepared to take a lot more risk and partner countries and particularly their governments need to demonstrate their commitment to achieving the SDGs. And last but not least, I would say, of course the quantity of resource matters but it's also the quality. And that's something that we in the DAC spend a huge amount of time on, making sure that, you know, this precious resource that we have that is official development assistance that we use it as well and effectively as possible. Right, and I think, you know, from what you said, Susanna, it's clear that ODA is an important part of the financing puzzle, but it's not everything. So I just wanted to go back to you, Jeff. I mean, the first part of the SDR this year basically provides a plan for a global plan for financing the SDGs. What would be the main other pieces of that big financing puzzle? And what's the role in our view of institutions like the G20 or the IMF in order to strengthen SDG financing? There's just a basic interesting fact, which is that if the United States government goes out to borrow for 30 years, it will pay about 2.5% interest rate on that 30-year borrowing. If the government of France goes out to borrow for 30 years, similarly it will pay about 2.5% interest on that. If the government of Ghana goes out to borrow for 30 years, it may pay, if it could get a 30-year loan, which is big question mark, it might pay 10% coupon rate or 12% coupon rate. In other words, a completely different world for at least, I would say 50 countries minimum. If they go out to borrow for 30 years, they'd be laughed out of the bank. No chance, you don't qualify. In fact, of the 82 low income and lower middle income countries, only three of the 82 have an investment grade credit rating. So we have two worlds, oddly enough, the one that really needs the capital urgently can't borrow. The ones that have all of the infrastructure and so on, they borrow at very low rates. The core solution is to shift some of that saving to the needs of poor countries at favorable interest rates. Now you might say, well, they're risky, but when people have studied lending to emerging economies over long periods of time, the penalty rates they pay are much greater than the real risks involved in these loans. There's lots of illiquidity, there's lots of stops and starts, but in the end, the investors get too good a deal as it were compared to what they get back from the US or Eurozone bonds and so on. This is a long way of saying, we can fix the flow of finance so that it meets the needs of a lot more people, billions now who live in countries that don't have access to market financing at reasonable rates. There's a simple way to do this and that is to expand what the World Bank or the European Investment Bank or the African Development Bank or the Asian Development Bank borrows from the world capital markets because those institutions borrow at the low rates so that they can on lend at low rates to billions more people. This is our basic point. Expand development financing markedly, enormously, five or 10 times full, another trillion dollars a year, for example, which is only 1% of world output and saving is about 25 trillion, so it's about 4% of world saving. Shift 4% of world saving and extra trillion, you start to get some real investments underway in developing countries. And this is the basic idea. We need enough financial reform, enough change of IMF rules and regs, enough change of what they call the debt sustainability framework, enough change of how these multilateral institutions function, enough rise of their paid in capital, which then gets leveraged many, many times in order to increase dramatically the flow of finance. And as you know, Guillaume, because we work on it together, we count six areas for financing, education, health, energy and industry, agriculture, urban infrastructure, and digital access for all, those six big transformations, and they are financeable, but they're not getting that financing right now. And therefore, just to give the example that absolutely shocks me, we have hundreds of millions of kids not in school because governments can't afford to provide free primary and secondary education. And that's what financing should solve. Every kid should be getting an education. That's SDG four, but it's also the most basic moral need and the most basic practical investment we can make on this planet. And with an extra 50 or $100 billion a year, which among friends is just not very much money again, one tenth of 1% of world output. Come on, to get kids in school, are you kidding? So this is what we're really arguing for. Yeah, and Jeff, we'll go back in the next session also and describe those six transformations, which are very much part of the Sustainable Development Report. And we'll also hear later today about a country, Benin, that has issued an SDG bond and you were talking about the cost of borrowing that SDG bond was issued with a Greenium, so a Green Premium, but also with a relatively long maturity. And we're talking about 12.5 years, which is the kind of longevity that you need in order to make the kind of investments meters also for the SDGs. But Susanna, the DAC has been quite active around the need to scale up climate finance. And there was a declaration that was issued in Glasgow last year around specifically this need to scale up climate finance for these developed countries and in particular on climate adaptation. So I just wanted to hear from you, why do you think this focus on climate finance but also on climate adaptation particularly is critical at this stage? You're on mute, Susanna, yeah. Sorry, sorry, pressed the wrong button. Just before I answer you on climate, can I just endorse what Jeff has said is we are not short of money in the world. And we spend so much of our time thinking about how we're gonna spread the resources we have more thinly. There's actually plenty out there. And I think that's the core of this. And in a world where there is plenty of money but we're likely to see tens of millions of people starving to death this year, there is something very wrong, which brings us back to the criticality of the SDGs. So climate, you're absolutely right. In advance of COP26 last year, the DAC negotiated a declaration on how to align official development assistance with the goals of the Paris agreement. It was a, as ever, a negotiation. There was something for everyone, not everybody got everything they wanted. But I think what it demonstrated very, very clearly was despite all the immediate crises we're facing, unless we hardwire the consequences of climate change into everything we do in terms of trying to promote the SDGs, we're not gonna succeed. Now, there's been a huge emphasis, as we know, on mitigation, particularly in the developed world, but small island developing states, least developed countries are already living with the catastrophic consequences of climate change. I think one of the most frightening conversations I've ever had, I was in the Pacific, and decisions were being made now about whether it was worth building a road or whether those people needed to be moved. That's not something that's gonna happen in 10 or 20 or 30 years time. That is happening now. And I know we're gonna hear from the Pacific shortly and I'm sure there will be lots of equally frightening examples. So just let me focus on the adaptation piece. I mean, what we said was, we've got to put more resource into adaptation because the private sector doesn't tend to invest in adaptation. We've got to make the resources that are available much, much easier to access. It is just simply too hard, particularly for small island developing states and poor countries to get hold of the green finance adaptation that is there. It takes too long. It's very bureaucratic. They're often quite small amounts of money. And what we have to do is simultaneously help these economies, societies, polities become more resilient to the inevitable shocks that are going to hit, whether that's hurricanes or droughts or other weather shocks. And then last but by no means least, cutting across all the sustainable development goals is going to have to be supporting just transitions to greener economies. There's no reason why poor people in developing countries don't need electricity. They do. So how are we going to harness the power of innovation to help some of them leapfrog, one would hope, but to finance that critical just transition. So the climate declaration is to say it's a package deal like so many things. There are parts of it that are far more relevant to very poor countries, say, than those who are emerging. DAC members operate in different parts of the declaration, but we've done the easy bit, which is to agree on what we're trying to achieve. And now we're rolling our sleeves up and working hard to implement it. And we'll give our first stock take of where we've got to at COP 27. Right. And so moving on to you, Jeff, I think we've discussed, so we've heard from about ODA, we've heard about the role of credit ratings, the IMF, and we just heard also about the private sector as well. And you mentioned earlier today, Jeff, that in your view, the SDGs are largely an investment agenda to physical infrastructure and human capital. And we have basically three of the G20 countries, the EU, the US, and China, that have major international infrastructure projects in place. The US with the Build Back, the Beta, the Global Gateway in the EU, China with the Belt and Road Initiative. So I'm just wondering how critical do you see those major infrastructure programs and projects and how critical is it to align those projects with the objective of the SDGs in order to advance on this agenda? It's a great question and we don't know the answer yet. But as you say, China launched the Belt and Road Initiative about eight years ago. I'm a fan of it. I think Belt and Road Initiative is a way for China to help develop major infrastructure around the land routes from Asia to Europe and the sea routes and also into East Africa. It got criticized a lot by Europe and the United States. What are the terms? Does it make sense? There were some bad investments, by the way, expanding coal-fired power plants, which is a no-no in a world trying to decarbonize, but the investments are getting better. And China has said, we want sustainable projects and I think that's a big step forward. But to compete with China in a way, and also, I hope, for good results on their own, both the US and EU have launched similar initiatives on paper, the US to build back better world and the European Union, the global gateway. Now, show us the money, as I would say, or as is said, are these programs real? Is there something there? How big are the investments? I'm working on trying to bring these investments to critical infrastructure in Africa, for example. I'm waiting to see, is the money real? Is it really there or is it just a diplomatic announcement? There's a fantastic project that's been discussed for decades, Grand Inga hydropower. President Chis Kedi has asked me to help look at what's possible. My recommendation is, this is remarkable, green energy, 40 gigawatts or more that could bring electricity to people who have no electricity in Central Africa region along the Congo Basin region. So I'm hoping that the global gateway would say, yes, this is exactly the kind of thing that should be done. I'm hoping build back in a better world would say, of course. So the answer is, these are good ideas. They would put public financing to the service of sustainable development. I wanna see them scaled up. All of them, the Belt and Road, the global gateway, the Build Back Better World, but I wanna see real investments at scale, not symbolic investments at a project or pilot level but large-scale investments. This war, just to come back to the Ukraine war, is horrible. You'd think the United States voted a $40 billion emergency package right now for Ukraine, half of which is armaments and so forth. This is for a couple of months. If I had said, why don't we have $40 billion for long-term African development? Is that are you crazy? We have budget constraints. There's no way we could do this. This is impossible. We have no money and so on. They like voting for war, by the way. I don't know what it is, but war makes everyone make a quick vote instead of, by the way, going to negotiations because it's while it's a digression. I'm completely convinced this can be settled diplomatically. But my main point is there's money there. They just don't wanna put the money to these purposes and we need to see whether these large-scale investment programs are real. They should be real, is the bottom line. Right, and we're arriving at the end of this very nice conversation and we could have spent much more time, of course, but we'll need to move on to the next part of the agenda for today. But before we close, I just wanted to have a quick response from both of you. So we are today, obviously, the Stockholm Plus 50 conference just started. There's gonna be the high-level political forum in July, the UN General Assembly in September and other G20 and COP meetings. But in about a year from now, a bit more than a year from now, there will be the second heads of state summit on the SDGs. The last time heads of state met to discuss the SDGs was in 2019. And I think we'll all agree that the world has changed a little bit since 2019. So from your perspective, and maybe starting with you, Susanna as the OECD DAC Chair and the new Jeff as the president of the SDSN, what would represent success at this heads of state summit in a year from now? What should happen? So maybe starting with you, Susanna. Okay, thanks. I think first of all, it's a compelling political story about why the SDGs are more urgent than ever. Secondly, 0.7 from all members of my committee would be greatly appreciated. Thirdly, everyone else needs to step up as I've mentioned before and that includes partner governments as well as other sources of finance. And last but by no means least, something we haven't mentioned is to get serious about gender equality. There's overwhelming evidence to show that when you fight for gender equality and involve women in decision-making that you deliver on all the SDGs faster and it would also help with the war too. I couldn't agree more. Turn everything over to the women. We wouldn't have the wars, really. This is, we have some sanity in all of this. Cause, so of course I 100% agree with you, Susanna, what these leaders really should say. The politicians need to get with it. The world needs sustainable development. The risks that we face every day when we don't have a trajectory that is towards the future we want is getting more and more shocking and alarming. And therefore the direction and the commitment of scale and pace to solve these problems is what the world is absolutely yearning for. It's clear in 2023, we'll already know that many of these SDGs will not be achieved for many countries. It's not a reason to give up or slow down or say I don't want to be, I don't want that report card. It's a reason to recommit because my God, what are the SDGs? They're just exactly when they were adopted, what was said, they are the future we want. The longer we delay that future could be out of reach because we could absolutely wreck the planet in the interim. So we can't slow down, we have to speed up. We're going to have to have these goals not just in 2030, but basically the mid-century. That's what the Paris Agreement tells us. We're gonna have sustainable development goals to 2050 because that's the time horizon we need to decarbonize the economy to really ensure that nature is protected. So I think in 2023, a clear, bold trajectory in a world of peace because by the time we get there, we better be at peace in a world of peace and not a world of alliances but a world united for sustainable development. Not an us versus them world, but a world united and a vision to carry us to mid-century is what the world really yearns for. And I hope that SDSN, as it did in the lead-up to 2015 that we play our part in helping to put forward a vision that the world can adopt and share. But that's what I think young people everywhere are really after. We want a future, we want a future that is safe, secure, just. And that's the future that the sustainable development goals can help us to achieve. Great, great ending to this conversation, Jeff. The SDGs are in the future that we want. Let me thank both of you for joining today, Jeff. Susanna, it's been wonderful to be with you. You're obviously welcome to stay for the rest of this webinar, but thank you very much for your time. So we're gonna move on and I'm gonna catch up sometime now and reduce my presentation slightly of the key results basically because all of this is available online already. So this event features the official launch and it's available since this morning, the Sustainable Development Report 2022. This is the seventh edition of a report which is led by the SDSN supported by the Beltersman Foundation and published by Cambridge University Press. We look at the performance of all UN member states on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The methodology has been peer reviewed and statistically audited. Let's move on to the next slide and just to say that this is really a collaborative effort. First of all, between the SDSN secretariat and all of our global networks of researchers and scientists mobilized for the sustainable development goals, but also within the secretariat across many teams. I'm not gonna go through all the authors and contributors to this report. There will be too many people, but just to single out the key role that my colleague, Grayson Fuller, Finn Wong, but also Professor Christian Kroll, play in producing this report also. Isabel Namassa and Leslie Bermond Diaz on the financing parts. And this year also from, we got a great contribution from our colleagues from the thematic research on data and statistics, the trends network. Let's move on to the next slide. So in terms of the main results this year, and this is what we've been discussing also in the previous panel just now, basically the multiple and simultaneous crisis, the pandemic first and foremost, but also geopolitical tensions, economic crisis, climate crisis have led to a major setback basically on this agenda. This is not to say that from 2010 and 2019 we were on track for the goals. This is not to say that all the goals were moving in the wrong direction or all countries, but there was on average progress happening in the world. This is no longer the case since 2020. Next slide. And so this is the top 20 and the bottom 20 ranking for this year's SDG index. So, European countries tend to top the SDG index. Now this is largely driven to good performance on the social economic goals. All of the countries, even those at the top here, face major challenges, especially on the SDGs related to responsible consumption, production and sustainable agriculture. And then at the bottom, you see that there's still major gaps, but also what we discussed in the report is limited recovery partially due to the limited fiscal space in low income, lower middle income countries, many of them in Sub-Saharan Africa and of course military conflicts and tensions undermine SDG progress. Next slides, please. So this is an example of a country profile and this is the example for the country with number, which is number two this year in the SDR, Denmark. You can see here that despite being number two, there's still major challenges for Denmark on SDG two, which covers issues around sustainable diets, agriculture, but also around responsible consumption and production and climate action. And part of this is driven, not only by domestic impacts on the environment, but also in terms of negative international spillovers, which is something that the report tracks. Also those CO2 emissions deforestation generated abroad to satisfy consumption, mainly in high income countries. And so you have below the dashboard here, the International Spillover Index, where you see that here, even Nordic countries still face major challenges. And those country profiles are available for all UN member states. Next slide, please. And this is just an illustration of what I was saying before that the EU and OECD member states tend to have on average a higher SDG index score now. They do generate negative international spillovers through consumption, as I mentioned, and trade, but also through unfair tax competition or profit shifting, for instance. The next slide, please. And this is an illustration on imported CO2 emissions by income groups where you see that the large proportion of those CO2 emissions that are imported, they're actually generated to satisfy consumption in high income countries. Next slide, please. So this is the framework that we were talking about earlier, the six transformations, which is a framework that was published in nature that the author was Professor Sacks to try to operationalize a bit more the SDGs and move away from working with 17 goals, 169 targets, 240 plus indicators and provide a framework for governments to help guide investment decisions and policies. And so without going in details into this framework, what we try to do is to say, look, the SDGs oriented towards 2030, we have the Paris Climate Agreement oriented towards 2050. Now, if we want to achieve these objectives in eight years or by mid-century, the policy environment and the investment, the investments need to happen now. And this is why besides the index, we also work a lot on documenting the evolution of the policy infrastructure, including the development in terms of rules, regulations, investments, subsidies, and so on. So the next slide, please. And so what you'll find in the report are as detailed six transformation scorecards, which look, for instance, in the law, how many years of free and compulsory education is there or how much gender equality is integrated into the law. On climate, which is the transformation three here, whether there is a commitment to net zero, but also whether there's unconditional fossil fuel subsidies that are still happening. Next slide, please. We also look at other proxy measures at halfway. Again, we're halfway into the on the road to 2030, whether countries have done the effort of preparing a voluntary national reviews halfway into this agenda. And we see here that six countries have not submitted BNRs. Some countries have submitted three or even more BNRs. Among those six countries, there is the United States that has never submitted a voluntary national review. Next slide, please. In cooperation with our networks, we also look at the integration of the SDGs within policy processes and statesman strategies, budgets, monitoring systems, and so on. And here the main message is that there is relatively higher integration of the SDGs into speeches, also to some extent, into some strategies and action plans. Now there's a bit less integration into, let's say, hard public management procedures and practices like budgets, for instance, as you can see here. And then taking those scorecards, but also the survey of our government efforts, we aggregate this into a proxy measure. And this is a pilot version this year of the level of SDG commitment. And this is what you have in the next slide. And again, this is discussed at length in the report. But what we, what you can see here is that basically one of the main message is that within the G20 countries like the US, the Russian Federation and Brazil show the least support for this agenda. And this is at the federal central level. It doesn't mean obviously that at a subnational level there's not great initiatives happening, but at the central federal level, we see less commitment. And on the opposite side, if I stick to G20 countries, we see that countries like Argentina, but also Germany, Japan, Mexico show relatively more support in addition to the Nordic countries. Next slide, please. And then I think one interesting way of looking at this is to connect the needs, the SDG index gap which you have here on the y-axis versus this assessments of government efforts for the sustainable development goals. And you see here that some countries have a large, a relatively large gap. So there is a lot of needs, but also show remarkable commitment for this agenda. So this would be countries that you see here like Benin and Nigeria. And in a context where impact investing is picking up quite a bit. And in a context also where some of those countries have issued SDG bonds, this is an interesting way and maybe an interesting aspect to think about how to connect a bit better these three things which are the amount of the SDG gaps in the country, the efforts and commitments, but also access to financing. So I will stop here. Again, I've been very quick today but all of this is accessible online. Next slide, please. And we also have a very detailed data explorer data tool which I invite all of you to go take a look at. And if you have any questions, we have obviously an email address which is here at the bottom of the slide. So that's for the presentation of the SDR-22. Now let's move on to some country and regional perspectives. And here I will invite Mr. Arsene Densu and also Mrs. Simona Marinescu to join me in the panel. So, and maybe starting with you, Arsene. I mean, first of all, I'm happy to have you with us Arsene. You are the head of the debt management agency in the government of Benin. As we have seen in my last slide, Benin is among the country which according to our proxy measure is doing quite a bit of efforts, has a relatively large SDG gap but is doing quite a bit of effort and is committed to this agenda. Benin is also a country that has issued an SDG bond framework with quite a bit of success. So, can you tell us a bit more? And I mean, I'm sure you will mention it but you've received some prices around this SDG bond, the deal of the year from the banker which is part of the Financial Times group and so on. Can you tell us a bit more about the process that led Benin to develop such an SDG bond framework but also some of the characteristics of this bond and why do you see this as a promising instrument to finance infrastructure projects and sustainable development in your country, Benin? So over to you, Arsene. Thank you very much, Guillaume. Hello, everyone. It's a great pleasure for me to be on this panel today with you but please allow me to really thank Jeffrey and Susanna for this invitation. I'm very pleased to be here today on behalf of the Minister of Economy and Finance of Benin, Mr. Rubial Wadahin, who will have liked to be together with us but due to agenda and availability, he could not be together with us. So yes, Benin is starting a journey on the SDG target reaching and we have choose to tackle one of the key challenges in achieving the SDG goal which is the financing as my predecessor said during the presentations, financing these SDGs is a very great challenge for developing countries such as Benin. So what we did is that we have started building a story by allowing Benin development strategy and also the policy metrics to the SDG requirements. We started our journey in 2016. We've a new dynamic in public finance governance in general and then management in particular. And also when Benin in 2018 was selected to participate in the joint UN and IMF pilot project with four other countries where only Benin and Rwanda were selected as African countries. This joint pilot initiative was to evaluate the SDG related financing needs which was called the costing exercise and to assess the sources of financing to meet those needs. As part of this costing analysis, a total SDG financing need was identified for the 2021 to 2025 period. As part of this initiative, Benin voluntarily enter into a program with the IMF to define priority and social expenditures for our countries to reach the SDG targets. So as part of that, we have conducted a study on the territorialization of the SDG with the support of the German corporation in 2019. It is therefore in coherence with this systematic SDG driven approach that we became the first African country to issue an SDG bond in July 2021. Before issuing that bond, we put together a framework to specify the eligibility of the expenditures considered according to the nature of the expenditures, mainly capital expenditures and current expenditures of the ministries of education and health. For example, demanding as three gen exclusion criteria has been defined. Benin SDG framework has been audited and validated by Visual Aries, a Moody's group entity. We have obtained from Visual Aries the best possible score, which was advanced contribution assessment and full alignment with the best practices and IHMA principle. During that process, we have identified 12 ovation eligible categories group according to the four pillars of Benin national development plan, which were population, prosperity, planet and partnership. Our targeted population were very carefully defined, far more than in other sovereign sustainable bond frameworks and where for instance, the new and in particular first time in terms onto farmland, population living informal accommodation and deprived of functioning water points, young girls and women whose access to health services and family planning support is limited, health and care personnel, female entrepreneurs, coastal populations of South Benin, particularly those next to lake or coastal areas with mangroves. So prior to this July issuance, Benin has built a very transparent story and strong relationship with the international capital markets by issuing its inaugural Euro bonds in March 2019 for 500 million euros. That's to make Benin being the first African countries to issue the inaugural Euro bonds in euros. This transaction was followed by a second Euro bond issued in January 2021 for one billion euros with a liability management component, which allows Benin to partially prepaid the 2019 Euro bond. Then came the 2021 SDG Euro bond which proceeds was dedicated exclusively to finance or refinance projects of the government action program with very strong SDG sensitivity. Prior to the issuance, we have conducted a provisional selection of eligible sectoral projects based on SDG priority targets, taking into account semantic and sectoral exclusion which resulted to the allocation of the proceeds. 12 categories of eligible expenditures grouped according to the four pillars retained has been established. I spoke earlier about those four pillars which are population, prosperity, planet and partnership. So that transaction was 500 million euros issuance. We had more than 1.2 billion euros subscriptions and the transaction was concluded for a maturity of 12.5 years, a yield of 2.5 and a coupon of 4.95 with a greening of more than 20 basis points, which was one of the highest in that kind of transaction. Just being conscious of time, Marcel, and I think this is really great because you've highlighted basically that in the case of Benin, first of all, you managed to get a greening, the maturity of the bond is also relatively long for lower middle income countries. But also I think one thing that you've emphasized, Arsene, is the importance of the process behind the development of those bonds which help also to identify the key priorities and investment priorities. So thank you so much. And again, I'm just being a little bit conscious. Can I add a quick one to conclude? One of the component of the process which is very important for us is the relationship with some partners like UNSDSN which has supported Benin in establishing the framework, but also helping Benin to build a story in achieving the SDG target by evaluating from time to time Benin process and Benin wish to reach those SDG targets. I thank you. Thank you so much, Arsene. And we're absolutely delighted at SDSN to partner with Benin on this journey where actually in the process of opening up an SDSN network in Benin also to strengthen the role of science in order to advance those SDGs. And there will be actually a report also coming out, a cooperation between the government of Benin and SDSN around the dates of the high-level political forum. Arsene, thank you so much. And again, congratulations to you and the team at the Ministry of Economy and Finance for the success of this SDG bond. Simona, and I think I will let our audience know that we might run about five minutes late today, but Simona, I'm turning over to you. So we've heard that multiple simultaneous crises have impacted SDG outcomes on average globally, but if there's one category of countries that have been particularly hit hard by those crises, I think small island developing states are some of those. So could you give us, I mean, I was just looking before the webinar at some of the numbers that are, in 2020 Maldives, we're talking about the minus 33.5% GDP drop, Antigua Barbuta minus 20.2 GDP drop, Fiji minus 16%. I mean, these numbers are absolutely huge. So can you give us a sense of how those crises have impacted the economic situation but more broadly SDG outcomes in small island and developing states? And tell us in your view as the UN resident coordinator in Samoa, what would be the priorities? And especially in terms of financing in order to restore and accelerate SDG progress in SIDS. Over to you, Simona. Thank you so much, and Guillaume. And let me also start by thanking Gessen for a great partnership and for the release of this report systematically, which provides a great source of information with what comes out of the VNRs of the Voluntary National Reviews. And because you issued the report every year, we can also see the direction of travel. So let me in pointing to some of the questions and your question answer very quickly. So first of all, three of the four exclusively at all countries of this world are in the Pacific. So the Maldives outside the Pacific and in the Pacific we have Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu. So those are countries that cannot make it to 2050 unless a series of things happen. And one of them is of course access to financing. But let me also say when I look at the six transformations that you're talking about, I need to put on the record that small island states do not even have at this point in time social protection systems. I have countries in the Pacific that do not have access, 40% of the population in Solomon Islands in PNG do not have access to electricity today. Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are still sourcing almost 100% their electricity using fossil fuels despite the sunny weather throughout the year and also the presence of hydropower as well. So across the board we talk about high level of risk of debt distress, high reliance on ODA. So this is a desperate case of some innovative solutions to come in. Listening to Arsene, I was just about to say we wanted and we would be happy. We wish we could have a line of SDG bonds, PDA, green bonds, blue bonds to fund the agenda. Unfortunately with no credit worthiness with such a small fiscal space, it's very difficult to imagine that but we do have some solutions. So first of all, let me say that SDIMF is moving towards more flexible instruments such as the resilience and sustainability trust where loans could be made on for climate change as well as for health risks and covering 75% of the members of the IMF we see the seeds qualifying for that. However, it's not all about money and I want to thank Susana for making the point that it's also extremely important to look into the quality of financing. Also within the existing envelope of financing, seeds should not compete with the rest of the world considering that they are facing existential threats and they're unable again to fund their agenda as reflected by multiple reports. I am particularly interested in speaking today about the work that we are doing together with SDSN that allows us as of 2022 to add to the GNI per capita and add their metric that would allow countries to have access to development financing based on their needs, not on GNI per capita. GNI per capita no longer says anything and I think we have been talking about that for decades now, but even less so today when countries are facing multiple threats in a development emergency situation, we no longer talk about linear development. So the multidimensional vulnerability index that we are working on today will be actually tomorrow, today discussed again by the high level expert panel of the president of the General Assembly will be adopted this year and will allow countries to access financial instruments, the new instruments that Jeff Sachs speaks about using this multidimensional vulnerability index as well to distinguish into the same income group, big income, low income, high income, within the same income group, the MVI helps the financial institutions to see the distinction, to see how for instance, a volcano like the one in Tonga could wash out 10 years, maybe more than 10 years of development progress. Countries in the Pacific never recovered from one cycle onto the other because of the frequency and because of again, other shocks such as the pandemic coming in. I just want to say a few things on the instrument. So first of all, seeds need the SDRs to be able to generate a blue and green bonds. So that's extremely important, whether directly or SDRs to go into resilience funds because seeds do have resilience funds with which they can further guarantee the issuance of such bonds would be critical. What seeds also are asking for is that the SDRs to be channeled through regional banks to allow regional banks to generate more innovative instruments, financial instruments for seeds. Seeds of course talk about that swaps. We've been talking about swaps for a long while. That swaps also need to be very creative and linked to climate, linked to environment. Maybe that to equity as well, if some of the return off that is going to be invested into power plants, for instance, into the energy transition. Of course, creditors, if they are commercial creditors, could then be shareholders. So we need to be as flexible as possible at this time considering where seeds are. And just to conclude, we also expect COP 27 this year to finally bring clarity on the carbon pricing floor. We need carbon financing. And if carbon pricing floors are being adopted finally as suggested by financial institutions, seeds will make a call using the MVI to demonstrate how vulnerable they are to get compensations. They want to also use SDRs to practically trade as the arts for insurance, disaster insurance that would also help them. So I'm very much encouraged by the chapter that is in the report on the Global Financing Plan. I know Professor Sacks works together with the deputy secretary general at the United Nations to advance that. And we do have all those proposals for small island states will go to G20. So I'm hoping that people listening to us today who are going to play a role this year in all those important for making decisions will think of seeds when discussing such solutions moving forward. There's much more that I want you to mention, but let's just say that I know OECD and I know DAC and the chair would be important players into that. We have enough data on the table to make the case. It's just a matter of willingness. We have come a long way together. We should be able together to make a change. And the change should be level of financing close to financing distinguishing among countries based on actual needs and not GNI per capita alone. Thank you. Simona, thank you so much. And look, I think we're only scratching the surface today on all of those topics, but the conversation will continue very shortly actually because I think at the high level political forum, there will be specific events and activities around the topic of financing the SDGs and in particular on SIDS. Thank you also Simona for bringing our attention to the specific vulnerabilities of SIDS also to the issue on compensation, loss and damages, the quality of spending, but also on the role of the IMF through the special drawing rights, the SDR, I'm mentioning the full term because the SDR is also the Sustainable Development Report, which we are launching today, but also on the role of the development banks as well to advance this agenda. So Simona and Arsene, Arsene, thank you very much. Simona, thank you so much. We're already past the hour, so we're gonna have to close. I see Simona, you have your finger raised. It has to be very quick because we're gonna have to... I'm answering a point made on the chat. So somebody said that the book recently spoke about the importance of using domestic resources to fund SDGs, taxes primarily. Yes, it is true. For as long as we treat the SDGs as an add-on, we talk about additional resources needed. If SDGs become the fundamental agenda of every government and they will be factored into everything that budgets are funding, also for the private sector, the 103 global economy that Jeff referred to can actually finance the SDGs. We need the SDGs to be the only agenda. Otherwise, we will never get to the bottom of this and all resources need to align with the SDGs. Thank you so much. Very good, Simona. So the SDGs are the future we want. They are also, they should remain our North Star despite the many crisis that we're facing. Arsene, I saw that you had your microphone open. Also, quick final remark on your side. Thank you very much. I was agreeing on the last point of Simona. For our development countries, we need to put the SDG agenda as the key for our development, for the well-being of our populations. Thank you. Very good. Well, thank you so much to both of you for joining us today. And thank you also to our audience today we're still more than 500 people just in the Zoom. I don't know how many we are on YouTube, but I think this just shows the interest for discussing and hearing about the SDGs despite the difficult context. So it's time for me to thank everyone for joining today. I'll remind everyone that the Sustainable Development Report 2022 is available at SDGindex.org. I'll also take this opportunity to announce that DSDSN is in the process of setting up an SDG transformation center, which will bring our various tools and instruments to support SDG data policies and financing globally, building on our global network of experts and scientists, the center plans to be operational ahead of the 2023 SDG Summit and ready to support decision maker in the public, but also in the private sector to advance the SDGs. And in fact, today we're also announcing the expansion of our partnership with the Environmental Systems Research Institute, ISRI, the global leader in geo-referencing tools to strengthen access quality and granularity of SDG data. And we would of course love to partner and working with all of you that are dedicated to this journey and to help restore and accelerate SDG progress by 2023-2030 and beyond. So please feel free to reach out to us. Thank you so much everybody for joining us today and see you soon. Bye-bye. Thank you.