Addis Ababa: Chief of Urban Practices Branch at UN-Habitat, Shupra Narang Suri, emphasized the critical need for reforming international financial structures to address the growing SDG financing gap and support sustainable urban development, particularly in rapidly urbanizing regions like Sub-Saharan Africa.

Shupra Narang Suri, representing the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), has highlighted the urgent need for a overhaul of global financial systems to better support urban development and achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs).

She stressed the importance of ensuring fairer access to financial resources for development, particularly for cities and local communities.

“We know the SDG financing gap is growing,” Suri stated, “and we need more cities, more countries, more stakeholders to have fairer access to financial resources for development.”

She said the current financial landscape poses significant challenges, especially for developing and least developed countries.

The Sub
-Saharan Africa, as the fastest urbanizing subcontinent, faces particular difficulties in this regard, she pointed out.

“These cities don’t have access to finance. They also don’t have the capacity to raise their own resources,” Suri explained.

To address these issues, she called for a multi-faceted approach, including restructuring debt and providing debt relief, ensuring concessional finance is available to least developed countries and sub-national governments, redirecting finances to reach developing countries and local communities more effectively and increasing support for urban projects, given that 70 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities.

Suri also highlighted the need for a combination of domestic resources, support from International Financial Institutions (IFIs), National Development Banks (NDBs), and private sector investments to achieve sustainable development.

She acknowledged the complexities of these challenges, particularly in the post-COVID era where many countr
ies have sunk deeper into debt.

She emphasized the need for careful consideration of tax regime restructuring to avoid placing additional burdens on already struggling populations.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency