Poorer nations face $4 trillion sustainable development investment gap: UNCTAD

A lack of investment in less wealthy nations is a major obstacle to sustainable development, the UN’s trade and development body, UNCTAD, said on Wednesday.

Presenting the latest global trends in foreign direct investment, UNCTAD’s Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan said that developing countries faced a $4 trillion gap in investments in a number of sectors related to sustainable development, and that investments in the clean energy transition accounted for about half of this gap.

Ms. Grynspan reported that while investment in renewable energy has nearly tripled since the adoption of the Paris Agreement almost eight years ago, “we know that it's going to the developed countries and to the emerging economies”, and poorer states have largely been left out.

She said that more than 30 developing countries have not registered a single international investment in utility-size renewable energy generation since the landmark climate change treaty was adopted in 2015.

The UN official also stressed how much the global South needed two key agreements - the Black Sea Initiative for the exports of grain from Ukraine to global markets and the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Russian Federation and the UN to foster the exports of Russian food and fertilizers - to “continue bringing prices down” and stabilizing food and fertilizer markets around the world.

Launched in July 2022 in Istanbul, the Black Sea Initiative is up for renewal later this month.

UNCTAD also called for a series of policies and financing mechanisms to be put in place to help developing countries attract investment. Ms. Grynspan said that multilateral development banks can help scale up international investment by partnering with governments and the private sector – a measure that can reduce the spread on borrowing costs for energy investment projects in developing countries by up to 40 per cent.

The UNCTAD chief also insisted that investment played a “huge part” in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals which, she said, were “too big to fail”, calling them “the only game in town” whose success depended on collective action and global solidarity.

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TRT: 2’12”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH, NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATE SHOT: 5 July 2023
FORMAT: HYBRID PRESS BRIEFING
LOCATION: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

SHOTLIST

1. Exterior wide shot: UN flag alley UN Geneva.
2. Cutaway: wide shot, speakers behind podium at the press conference, UN Geneva.
3. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): “What are the sectors on SDG investment that have really showed a strong performance? Notably renewable energy. But we know that it's going to the developed countries and to the emerging economies. The rest of the countries are not really showing that performance.”
4. Cutaway: medium lateral shot, attendees at the press conference, UN Geneva.
5. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): “Developing countries face an investment gap of $2.2 trillion annually for the energy transition. This is more or less half of the funding gap for the Sustainable Development Goals. We have talked about a $4 trillion gap in investments for the Sustainable Development Goals.”
6. Cutaway: wide shot, speakers behind podium, attendees at the press conference, UN Geneva.
7. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): “The Black Sea Initiative for the exports of grain from Ukraine to global markets and the MoU [Memorandum of Understanding] with the Russian Federation is signed between the Russian Federation and the UN to foster the unimpeded exports of food and fertilizers from the Russian Federation, also to global markets. And we need both to continue bringing prices down and have stable markets of food in fertilizers in the world.”
8. Cutaway: medium lateral shot, attendees at the press conference, UN Geneva.
9. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): “If we combine international multilateral development banks, governments and private sector, that can reduce the spread on borrowing costs for energy investment projects by up to 40 per cent.”
10. Various cutaways of speakers and journalists at the press conference, UN Geneva.