While all 193 heads of state announced at the 2015 UN General Assembly to implement all 17 SDGs with their 169 targets by December 2030 at the latest, their budgetary realities seem to contradict this global promise to their people and the next generations.
Senior leaders from UN Habitat, UNGSII and UnASDG met with high-level government and finance experts at the SDG Hub in Davos 2024 to help leaders deliver on their commitments: The 100 billion SDG Pledge Fund will be supported by an additional SDG Reserve Fund backed by the national wealth of several countries, sovereign wealth funds and private wealth, following the example of Japan and the United Arab Emirates from the 1970s, when Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Dubai and Sharjah emerged on the back of Asian willingness to see wealth as an enabler for the future. The Kinshasa Process was first introduced at the UNECA conference in Kinshasa on November 15, reminding the world of what Japanese and UAE leadership had achieved for their people and how world leadership reflected these lessons with the Kimberly Process. At the SDG Lab 2024 in Davos, the purpose and strategy of the Kinshasa process were adapted and are now ready to make concrete offers to the first pilot countries.
During the UN Habitat General Assembly in Nairobi in June 2023, its Executive Committee proposed to design and test 80 cities in 20 countries on how to certify their progress according to scientifically valid standards and have progress confirmed by accounting experts such as Deloitte to secure and increase financial investments for those that not only implement the SDGs but also based on transparent metrics required by the financial sector to accelerate. After the three years of the UN Habitats Cities Investment Facilitiy, where every city could upload their projects, only 8 out of 400 cities have managed to receive the requested funds. At the UN-Habitat General Assembly, the 34 member states of UN-Habitat, who form the Executive Board of UN-Habitat UNGSII, together with UnASDG, Deloitte and other expert teams such as Enspire, were given a mandate to show 20 countries how to accelerate robust access to finance for SDG implementation. Within this group of 20 countries, the Kinshasa Process partners have decided to support these pioneers, with 4 cities being certified with additional funding from the SDG Pledge and Reserve Fund.
The SDG Pledge Fund managed by the UnASDG and the Kinshasa Process team is ready to provide access to unconditional funding to some pilot countries within the Group of 20 such as Greenland, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Suriname and Poland, to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs through iconic projects such as fighting poverty and hunger by enabling logistics experts from the United Arab Emirates, for example, to bring millions of unused high-quality water and land resources from Greenland to the GCC countries, Africa and Asia. Building SDG Youth Cities, alleviating the suffering of the growing number of more than 100 million migrants from around the world, accelerating access to smart solutions to energy and waste challenges, etc. The SDG Pledge Fund is initially endowed with 100 billion US dollars, which can be topped up by the SDG Reserve Fund. The unconditional funds will be secured through previously unused certified assets in the selected pilot countries as well as through associated sovereign wealth funds and a network of private supporters.
Framework for operations
There are investable funds such as Masterfund 100B. From this, countries such as Sri Lanka, Greenland, Nigeria and Vietnam are offered to create a common value base that always starts from the assets that already exist in each country such as state-owned enterprises, minerals, etc. These are assessed together with the Kinshasa Process expert team and aligned with the current needs of the country to a) reduce or even eliminate the threat of debt services and b) empower not only the leadership of the respective country but also its citizens to develop in line with the SDGs. UnASDG has created a multifaceted offer that goes as far as providing an unconditional basic income of 40 dollars per week for every citizen who either plants trees (and gets the carbon credits pre-funded) or smart solutions for plastic or civic engagement in sports clubs, etc. At COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, the global community pledged additional funding for countries that want to accelerate the implementation of SDG13.
The second fund will secure the Pledge Fund that has been pledged to the country and is there, e.g. 10 billion - so we can co-invest with the national Souveran Wealth Fund. (Senegal has a good one with high professionals, Tsibuti too, but the lady is the President's daughter (Dr. Fahmi), Cape Verde, Angola (the current President's son has the system L-Pay Link Pay through the UAE, the purpose of the reserve fund is to support projects in the country to support the local central bank. (to improve the balance sheet: to be robust and transparent)
Here is a first direct link to the Kinshasa process, as the reserve fund can be backed by national assets such as gold, lithium, etc.
As the was founded during the SDG Lab in Davos 2024, the partner countries receive the know-how and commitment of all six partners.