Additional annual USD 1 investment per person per day to help APAC reach SDG goals: UN report

An additional annual investment of USD 1.5 trillion, equivalent to a dollar per person per day, would allow countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, a United Nations survey said Thursday.

This is within reach for many countries given their fiscal space and potential to leverage private investment, the survey found.

The survey, titled 'Survey 2019: Ambitions Beyond Growth', was launched by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), a regional arm of the UN.

Despite rapid economic growth, many people are left behind without a fair chance in life, while environmental degradation has reached alarming levels, threatening the sustainability of past development gains, the report said.

Hence, keeping the old paradigm of prioritising GDP growth at all costs is neither feasible nor desirable, the report said.

"We must raise our ambitions beyond just economic growth. The 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals provide a clear blueprint for raising our ambitions. It calls for a change in mindset and an economic philosophy which puts people and the planet first," UN Under-Secretary-General and UNESCAP Executive Secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana said.

Closing this investment gap is within reach for many countries, but the gap is the widest in countries which can least afford to narrow it, UNESCAP Deputy Executive Secretary Hongjoo Hahm said.

The UN report said innovative financial instruments such as green bonds and promoting new investor classes can help leverage the massive USD 51 trillion in assets managed by the private financial sector in the developing Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

"In addition, there is considerable potential to raise tax revenues in the region while improved investment efficiency," Hahm said.

The survey also suggests the overall economic outlook in the Asia and the Pacific to be largely stable with relatively low level of inflation.

"Led by India and Bangladesh with a robust economic growth rate of over 7 per cent, South Asia has emerged as the fastest growing subregion in Asia and the Pacific," said Nagesh Kumar, director of UNESCAP's South and South-West Asia Office.