How the UN Is Turning SDG Priorities Into Investable Capital: Partnerships for Economic Transformation | Goals Lounge

Excellencies, colleagues, partners, and friends, good morning. I'm John Gilroy, Chief of Service at the UN Office for Partnerships, and you're all very welcome to the Goals Lounge. The Sustainable Development Goals were never short on ambition. What they have lacked is sufficient investment at the speed and scale needed to meet today's challenges. As we approach 2030, the question before us is how to turn sustainable development priorities into opportunities that can attract the capital needed to deliver real impact for people and for communities around the world. The Joint SDG Fund has been an important part of that effort. What began as an innovative idea has grown and strengthened over the years, demonstrating how the UN can help bring partners together unlock new opportunities and support country-led development priorities. Today, the fund continues to evolve, reflecting both the changing development landscape and the urgency of this moment. Today's discussion will explore how partnerships can help translate ambition into action and how investment can serve as a catalyst for sustainable economic transformation. We are fortunate to be joined by leaders from across government, the UN, and the financial sector today, who will share perspectives on the opportunities ahead and the partnerships we need to achieve them. It's now my great pleasure to welcome our moderator for today, Lisa Kerviel, who's the head of the Secretary of the UN Joint SDG Fund, who will guide today's conversation. Lisa.

Thank you so much.

All over to you.

Thank you so much. Colleagues, a very good morning and welcome. Delighted to be here representing the United Nations premier financing vehicle for the UN development system, the Joint SDG Fund. We have a distinguished panel who has traveled many miles to be here today. So I won't take up much of that time to welcome you, but please embrace the fact that this is one of the earliest events of the week of the UN General Assembly 81. And we are here committed to multilateralism. We are here committed to ending poverty, for fighting inequality, and joining hands to make a difference and accelerate the sustainable development goals. So without that, I have these beautiful couches where my esteemed panelists will be joining me. And I'd like to begin by inviting Secretary of State for International Cooperation from the government of Spain, Ms. Eva Granados Galiano. Eva, you're most welcome here on the couch to my left. I'm also delighted to welcome Mr. Luc Vaguer, who is Director for Sustainable Development Policy and Coordination at the European Commission, all the way from Brussels. Luc, you're most welcome on the couch. And equally, if not more so, my pleasure to invite my Assistant Secretary General, who leads the Resident Coordinator System, who leads the Development Coordination Office, Mr. Oscar Fernandez Toranco. Oscar, you are welcome. So, colleagues, I want to just begin by saying that we have extreme apologies from our Deputy Secretary General, Ms. Amina Mohammed, who regrettably could not join us this morning. And in delegating her remarks to Oscar, we have the representation of really the champion of the Fund. Ms. Amina Mohammed, she's the chair of the operational of the strategic advisory group of the fund. She has been a guide and a North Star for this fund and for the SDGs for these last seven years. So really thrilled to have her remarks and then to also invite Oscar to make a few reflections because he is the chair of the operational steering committee of the fund. So Oscar, over to you.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Lisa, and good morning to everybody in this room. And I understand Quite a lot of people joining us also by TV. So good morning to everybody and excellencies, really a big pleasure to share this podium with you and with Lisa. So I'll start by delivering just very short remarks from the Deputy Secretary General. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the sustainable development goals were never short of ambition. What they have lacked is capital. Capital that moves at the speed and the scale our world demands. The United Nations Joint SDG Fund was built to close that gap with a commitment and support of donors and governments since 2019. Every dollar it has invested has mobilized up to 20 more. Proof that when the UN de-risks, convenes and leads with courage, markets follow. In Indonesia, Our support helped lay the groundwork for the country's first sovereign SDG bond, which has since grown into billions of dollars in specialized bonds that have funded vaccines, scholarships for millions of children. In Uruguay, we brought seven major banks representing 80% of the country's banking sector into a renewable energy fund now unlocking millions for clean energy. In North Macedonia, a green financing facility built with a European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and six local banks is channeling tens of millions into environmental projects for undeserved households. And in Zimbabwe, $10 million in seed capital helped launch a renewable energy fund on track to create hundreds of jobs and power a solar park run by women. Across more than 100 countries, resident coordinators are helping governments turn national priorities into investable opportunities in energy, in food systems, in digital transformation, in decent jobs and social protection. Today, as the UNAT initiative looks to reposition the Joint SDG Fund as a flagship instrument for development financing, standing alongside the Central Emergency Response Fund and the Peacebuilding Fund to enable a more coordinated UN support across humanitarian, peacebuilding, and development spectrum. This is the moment to prove the Fund's models belongs at the core of the UN's work. This is the time to increase ambition and support the capitalization of the joint SDG fund. Governments, investors, partners, the capital exists, the model works. What we need now is scale. Let's renew our commitment to accelerate the SDGs. And I thank you all.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Oscar. So this framing, colleagues, takes us now to interventions from two of our most critical partners. Without the governments of Spain and the European Union, this fund would not have been able to mobilize, to accelerate, and to really unlock the financing that Oscar just referred to. So we really want to acknowledge and appreciate. It's no accident who's on these couches this morning. They really do represent sort of the champions behind this fund. And we obviously want to add many, many more member states and other partners and stakeholders to this initiative. as we grow. We're really thrilled also to see that there's so much conversation about pooled funding. There's so many conversations now about the financing mechanisms of our system, and we're really thrilled that the Joint SDG Fund stands tall with the Resident Coordinator System to really deliver. So without further ado, I'd love to pass, Eva, to you. We're really looking for your reflections, and we know that you know the Fund well, personally as well as professionally, so we just want to hand over to you, and thank you so much.

Thank you, thank you, Lisa, Luca, and Oscar, and all of you. Thank you, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and dear colleagues. Multilateralism is the only tool we have to solve common challenges. And to have a strong multilateralism, we need to reform it. My Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, always is stating this sentence, this phrase. And that's why Spain has been a constant defender of the reform of the United Nations Sustainable Development System since it was launched by the Secretary General in 2018. We had constantly support politically and financially two of the main elements of the reform of 2019. the UN Resident Coordinator and the Joint SDG Fund. As a matter of fact, Spain is the largest contributor of the Joint SDG Fund. Aware of the need of sufficient and predictable funding, we have made multi-year contributions to this key pool fund. we have fulfilled with 120 million pledge made by our Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez at the last SDG Summit. Today, our support remains as strong as ever, including the broader UN80 initiative. That is why we firmly back the recommendation of completing the strategic position of the joint SDG fund by designating it as the Secretary General's Fund for Development, the principal UN financing instrument for catalytic SDG action, similarly to what has happened with the CERF and the Peacebuilding Fund in the humanitarian and the peace pillars. Since its creation, the UN Resident Coordinator system has proved to be extremely effective and efficient in getting UN agencies together, in promoting inter-agency responses to country needs, and in achieving greater coherence and efficiency gains in the work of the UN country team. As for the Joint SDG Fund, It has been a major tool with sufficient financial power to address shared and complex challenges efficiently. Its support has been outstanding, not only in strengthening the role of the UN Resident Coordinator, but also in allowing a more flexible and agile transfer of resources. on the ground to be directed towards projects with multiplier effects. 120, you said?

120.

On different sustainable development goals. Our continual support for the joint SDG fund and the UN resident coordinator system is no coincidence. It's the result of a careful consideration of how to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 agenda. and on how to do it effectively, building on what works. Because we need to reduce the proliferation of funds and the fragmentation of our actions. Thereby, we need to achieve greater impact through a UN system that is agile and robust. But But it is also grounded in our shared views and priorities as the Spanish cooperation. The six transitions identified during the SDG Summit, which have a clear transformative and catalytic potential, are also the priorities of the Spanish cooperation. Food security. climate change and biodiversity, digital connectivity, education, social protection and decent work, and accessible energy. We believe that the joint SDG Fund has a great potential to create an enabled environment for sustainable investments in these areas. But It also incorporates two cross-cutting approaches that we deem absolutely essential: gender equality and localisation. Because global tools for change will only be successful if they fully include women and girls as agents of change on equal footing. And also, if these tools adapt to local needs and priorities and are able to reach in a pertinent manner every community in every territory, leaving no one behind. In that sense, allow me to highlight that Spain's close collaboration with the joint SDG fund, as well as with the UN Local 2030 Coalition, which we have the pleasure to host at the Spanish city of Bilbao. This collaboration has produced not only a specific portfolio of projects revolving around the localization of SDGs, but also an innovative localization marker that ensures that this approach is incorporated in every single project throughout the six transitions. The last SDG Joint Fund annual report presents a very encouraging data that demonstrates how to achieve many goals with hard work and determination. I'm sure that the best practices and success stories that will be presented in the upcoming roundtable will make the case for a reinforced, a strengthened fund as a crucial tool for achieving the SDGs. But more, but more still could and should be done, Lisa. And we have a unique opportunity to do it now. In the troubled times we are living in, We need more cooperation and we need more multilateralism. We need decisive reforms to strengthen them, not to weaken them. That is why we need enhanced, better funded, joint SDG fund, designed to serve as the backbone for the development pillar until 2030 and beyond. You know, you can count on Spain for that collective endeavor. And Spain wants to work with all of you to deliver in our collective promises for a better, fairer world. I thank you.

Eva, thank you so, so much. I think that the many examples of how not only is Spain a financier of what the fund is doing at the global level, it's also influencing the way we work, not only through UN interventions with member states, but through markers and policy initiatives that really can lock them in beyond UN interventions. There's been a lot of leadership from Spain to take that localization marker to member states across the EU, so there is a lot of alignment. We're not building separate interventions that the UN might be doing here. We're working through and with governments to really make it matter all the way up to the state level. So thank you so much, Eva. We really do feel it and see it. It's my delight to now pass the floor to our representative of the European Union, Mr. Luc Berger. You're also a very long and solid friend of the Joint SDG Fund, and we know that the Global Gateway is a billion, if not trillion, dollar initiative. that's bringing together public and private investments, everything from sustainable infrastructure, economic transformation, really demonstrating the ability to connect development objectives to the sustainable investing. And we know that that ambition is shared by all of your member states, and you're helping the UN work alongside you for that. So we really welcome you today, and we're delighted to hear your reflections. Over to you.

Okay, thank you very much, Lisa. Thank you for first, good morning to all of you, of course. So thank you, Lisa, for organizing this conversation, which is very relevant today. And this is linked to my first point. Oh, by the way, I used to speak too much, so do not hesitate to stop me. So my first point concerns the current meaning of development cooperation, as it does not operate in a vacuum. It has always been shaped by economic and political realities, as well as by broader foreign policy objectives. And the current context is marked by multiple crises. I will not name them, but we know all of them. And in response, development cooperation must go beyond the mere provision of aid, and it must be deployed as part of a broader toolbox for external action. And I think deeply that this logic underpins a wider paradigm shift. We are moving from a traditional donor-recipient model focused primarily on aid to a relationship in which the European Union, for instance, and its member states and partner countries collaborate on an equal footing around shared priorities. and mutual interest. And partner countries, when we talk with value chains, infrastructure, fiscal space, and the scale of current challenges, we know the gap for the SDGs for trillion dollar a year, is such that our focus will shift from aid flows to mobilization of all available resources. domestic resources, private sector finance, capital, innovative instruments, and furthermore, official development assistance that is shrinking, minus 40% over three years, should be used catalytically, if I can use this word, to mobilize additional public and private funding. And I think this is the core of the Global Gateway strategy, indeed, to develop comprehensive and investment packages in order to address the significant financing gap in achieving SDGs by mobilizing sustainable, high-quality investment in partner countries. So we do that in two ways. First, we Leverage public funds through innovative financing mechanism and guarantees to mobilize private investment, including from capital market. And today we are launching, for instance, the G, I don't know the acronym, but the Global Green Bond Initiative, so the GGBI. which aim to mobilize up to 20 billion private capital for sustainable investment in new partners country. So this is a good example of how we can mobilize private, private funding. And we have already mobilized more than 300 billion in fact, since 21. And the new objective is 400 billion euro by the end of 20 of 27. And beyond mobilizing private investment, and maybe it's more than, maybe it is the most important, we try through Global Gateway to build an enabling environment for business, so for investment, so the regulatory frameworks, stronger governance, higher environmental, social, and governance standards. And I think that all these elements create stable and attractive ecosystem for private system sector engagement. And I think this is the same logic for the SDG Fund. That's why we cooperate together, because since 2019, we have provided 60 million. But through the SDG Fund, you try to create the framework that allow the partner country and the private sector to cooperate in important sector like digital, for instance. But financing is not enough, in fact. We need also stronger partnership and better coordination on the ground. And I think that one of the most transformative opportunities under the UNHAT initiative is the reconfiguration of the country team. And we believe strongly in the European Commission that UN Resident Coordinator must become the main point of entry for stakeholders in partner countries. And strong resident coordinators can bring together governments, development partners, investors, and the UN, of course, around the priorities of the partner country. And to succeed, they need resources. So I do a call for all the UN members to find the right financing model of the system, preferably through assessed contributions. But the EU will continue to support the UN Resident Coordinator for the time being. And for 2026 and 2027, we will provide 14 million for supporting the system as we consider it is key for the coordination and the impact on the ground. So thank you very much.

Wonderful, wonderful. want to acknowledge that very generous contribution from the European Union, and we're thrilled to have that announcement. I think, as you know, colleagues, the role of the Resident Coordinator is that central entry point that really enables the best of the UN country team, all the development agencies, from the UN Development System to the Food and Agricultural Organization, right, from UN Women to the Industrial Development Organization. These are the breadth and the scope of all of the expertise that we want to have on demand, ready to deliver for governments in a very timely and efficient way. We couldn't be here without aligning with the private sector because ODA is indeed shrinking. We know that we need to have those critical partnerships. And I think the Joint Fund and even Global Gateway are really finding synergies. The conversations are really growing. And I hope that all the member states in the room, as well as all the partners representing the private sector, are seeing that opportunity to really unlock answers to problems that are not new. Many of the challenges of the SDGs are not novel, but the solutions are becoming that. I think the Green Bond Initiative is a great example. Unlocking resources through the capital markets, like we did in Indonesia, like we did in Uzbekistan, have capitalized hundreds of billions of dollars for vaccines, for scholarships, for things that really matter that are all part of the SDGs. So really want to acknowledge and appreciate both of you for your time today, for our beloved Assistant Secretary General as well for being here, and we thank our esteemed panel and we invite you to exit the podium. Thank you so much. So, colleagues, we're going now into our second segment of the morning, and I'm really thrilled. I think we're going to have a delightful video built by Liz Petruzzo here, our head of communications of the fund. And I'd like to invite our three next panelists maybe to slowly make their way. So I'm joined for this next segment by Ms. Maria, who is our deputy director of the Development Coordination Office of the United Nations. I am joined by Ms. Cleopatra Parkins, counselor of the Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the United Nations, and Mr. Juan Ignacio Mazzoni, counselor from the Permanent Mission of Uruguay to the United Nations. So colleagues, you are very, very welcome to give us more perspective. And I think we're maybe showing the video now as we, and we're dimming the lights, so please Wonderful. So colleagues, as mentioned, we're joined here by two of the member states where the Joint SDG Fund is implementing in support of government. And I'm really thrilled to have both Cleopatra and Juan Ignacio here with us this morning. Colleagues, the floor is really open for you to share reflections. Cleopatra, you've been helping us establish plans for a roadshow. So Ambassador Wallace of the Permanent Mission of Jamaica is helping us invite critical member states as well as private sector partners to visit Kingston to some of the great work that government is leading on the digital transformation, which is indeed linked back to the support from the European Union. So, Cleopatra, the floor is yours really to just share some reflections. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Lisa, and good morning, Excellencies and distinguished delegates. Firstly, allow me to thank the joint SDG Fund Secretariat for organizing this important event. This is indeed important discussion as we seek to accelerate progress on the SDGs. I also thank the panelists who spoke on the first panel for their insights and I welcome this opportunity to share brief reflections from Jamaica. So our experience shows the importance of starting with country priorities and national ownership and then bringing the right partnership and financing around them. Through the joint SDG fund, Jamaica is using catalytic financing to advance the digital transformation of our education system. This involves strengthening the data, digital infrastructure, and institutional capacity needed to support transformation at scale. What is particularly important for us is that this investment does not stand alone. The fund has helped to create a platform on which the government, the UN country team, and development partners can come together, connect an initial catalytic investment with much larger investment supported by partners, including the European Union and the World Bank. This is perhaps the broader lesson from Jamaica. For small island developing states where fiscal space is constrained, we need mechanisms like the Joint SDG Fund. that can make each development dollar work harder, helping countries build the enabling conditions, partnerships, and investment pipelines that can mobilize financing at much greater scale. So Jamaica is very grateful to the European Union and to Spain and the fund's other partners for supporting this model. The opportunity is now, and that is to scale it. bringing public development and private finance together earlier and more systematically around country-led priorities. Thank you so much.

Thank you. You know, it's notable, I think, as Luke might have to run to his next meeting, that part of the success that we're looking at in Jamaica is in fact alignment with a global gateway investment of, I believe, 9 million also on digital transformation. So it is starting to see these conversations align so that you don't have a member state intervention and bilateral support here and then a UN project here and then, goodness, another NGO project there, right? It really has to be this alignment of all these forces to ensure we have those efficiency gains And we're really thrilled that your ambassador is willing to host this roadshow, a way to really take some of our critical partners to the field to really show them what we're doing, but also to broaden the conversation yet again. I had a chance to do that recently with a seaweed investment project in Zanzibar. And we had Stanford angel investors, we had nonprofits from the ocean and the seaweed sectors, which by the way is a trillion dollar business I've learned, but the point is, bringing new profiles, new perspectives to government counterparts as they're striving to really build up their economies to end poverty and to move forward. So we're really thrilled to join hands with Jamaica and we're going to see you in Kingston very soon. So thank you, Cleopatra.

Thank you.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Juan Ignacio, we have great, great examples from Uruguay. We have Maria, who was actually the resident coordinator in Montevideo before her posting in Colombia, but we'd love to hear from you a little bit about the Renewable Energy Investment Fund. This is one of our great successes, colleagues, working with Santander, working with HSBC, with Scotiabank, some of these global finance and banking institutions to really see what opportunities could really be unlocked for the green energy transition. So, Juan Ignacio, over to you.

Thank you, Lisa. Thank you for the opportunity of being here to share my country's experience, and I think this This panel is a very good opportunity to transmit to other member states what I would define as a success story. Uruguay in the last 20, 25 years has been trying to change the way it generates electricity and has changed energy metrics. So we went from a situation in which we were generating most of our electric power from oil to a situation now in which we are generating at least 98% of our electricity capacities from renewable energies, mainly hydropower, but also wind power. That being said, we have also some challenges in starting the next transformation of our electricity, of our energy matrix, which has to do with the the carbonization of transport, of the energy we use for transport and for logistics. And here is a success story that I would like to share with all the audience that is today present. So now we are starting exploring the ways in which we can expand the access to green hydrogen in Uruguay. And Well, this is where the success story of the joint SDG fund comes. Well, and well, there was this, there was a need was identified, which was to decarbonize the logistics and the transport chain. So here a project was designed and with the help of the joint SDG fund, an initial investment of $7 million was made into a project that's called Kairos. This project aims to use green hydrogen in order to power the transport of the of the forestal economy of the we produce. We are a very large cellulose producer. So for us, the economy that has to do with forests is a very big asset. So there was this investment made in order to start powering the trucks that take the logs and the cellulose. And well, the good thing is that Thanks to this daring sking of investment, thanks to the investment by the joint SDG fund, the International Finance Corporation made an investment of other $20 million, and this was then attracted private investment from banks, as Lisa well mentioned. I think this is, I mean, at the same time, I think it's also a success story because it's a country led identification of a need. with coordination with the RC system in Uruguay, the resident coordinator in Uruguay, and together with the relevant state agencies that have a competence on this area. So I think that there is the good thing about this story is to show how all the stakeholders in this situation can articulate in order to act together and how the resources can be mobilized from various sources. We see here that from the SDG fund, from the IFC and also from private banks and also the coordination from the UN system in Uruguay together with the relevant national authorities made this possible. So I think that this is a very good example of how country led experiences can benefit from from this very important fund and how the risking certain investments can result in good in a good in a good result for for countries. So thanks.

Just to reflect on, you know, the joint SDG fund, the United Nations is not meant to replace the development finance institutions. We're not, we're not trying to edge in on space that is, is well preserved and well managed by, by the World Bank and others. It's really to show the role of that UN resident coordinator, the expertise that could be available for the feasibility studies, for the scoping, for the policy environment that might be needed for hydrogen and its roadmap for, for the country. And I'm thrilled to see Uruguay becoming a thrilled to see Uruguay becoming a model for Latin America and beyond because your your hydrogen $20 million loan is the first in Latin America for a green hydrogen project. That's no small achievement if you think about where it began and I'm really thrilled. This is a perfect tee up for Maria, who actually was resident coordinator in Uruguay at the time. She then moved forward to her role as resident coordinator in Bogota in Colombia, and now is deputy director of the Development Coordination Office here in New York. So, Maria, we'd love to hear your reflections, because you might remember when those earlier conversations in Uruguay took place, and now we are seeing how development, if you are channeling those funds, if you are convening the right partners, it could actually go to scale, right? Moving away from projects and moving into those larger scale investments. So thank you. And Maria, delighted. Over to you.

Thanks. I'm happy to join this country level conversation now on what this journey has been for the fund. and clearly I'll speak of the two contexts and not so much about Uruguay because it's been brilliantly covered, but my recent five years in Colombia. But I say so knowing that this really represents the experience of so many resident coordinators and country teams around the world. There is today, I wouldn't say everybody, because we haven't had all the funds that we would have liked to have, but a very, very strong cadre of leadership on the ground that looks at the financing agenda and its relationship with the Joint Adaptation Fund as a very consequential relationship for us to be able to contribute to the financing work. I would go as far as saying that those that have understood the potential of the Fund have used it to transform their relationships with different ecosystems. We used to be very inward looking. We would talk mostly to ministers of planning. And I think now the United Nations understands that it needs to join hands with others that know more than we do in the right ecosystems for the problems that we're trying to accompany support for. So I think our relationships have been reshaped massively. The tools that we use are also evolving. I would say that we're still too anchored on this project approach. We won't generate trillions worth of change on a project by project basis, which is nonsense. So I think we're all now exploring, using, deploying and learning through other types of tools. Some are market based, some are not. And finally, I think we've learned a lot. We've learned also what we shouldn't try to do. And we now have track records and proof of concepts of blended efforts in very difficult parts of the world, even in conflict affected areas. We are deployed first loss capital, we've subsidized credit lines, we've protected investors from foreign exchange changes, we are deploying guarantees, we're also toying with new ways of saving, we're bringing the digital toolkit for some of this work. So I think this is a space that wasn't the obvious and traditional space for country teams. In Colombia, we never looked at the fund as a project. We've developed a portfolio of investment facilities. That's what we did. This has been a bit of a time. It hasn't happened overnight. But today we are rolling out an inclusive digital transformation facility that really looks at accelerating through two streams, the open finance and open data needs of the country, but also meaningful connectivity, really transforming infrastructure investments into inclusion and what that takes in territories where there is very weak governance. We're working also through the window on food systems and really trying to bring together a perception of risk by the financial world that does not take into account the potential that small product units have in the country. We've done a lot of the demand preparation. We've worked our technical agencies support the agro sectors extensively, but it's usually through grant money. And we're now changing what is needed on one side and the other so that we can really land much bigger resources in their support. We're also working with some of the capitals of national governments, particularly Bogota, Medellin, and Cali, on really creating the conditions for sectoral investments around circular economy. And that means allocating credit through first-year commercial banks then we come and support. And the list continues. We're working on social protection. We're working in territories whose governance is completely indigenous to really learn energy and water and food security. So we're now able to think of the fund as a partner that allows us to join together with government leadership and policy priorities, but also with other partners to shape the kind of instruments that can help accelerate impact. Just three issues or three reflections that have come to mind, and I'm sure there are many others. One is, in many ways, it's like the convening role of the UN at the intergovernmental level is unquestionable. I mean, we are in the General Assembly High-Level Week. But I would argue that today, our country teams on the ground are able to convene outside partners in a much more efficient way. And we're often sought for that because, luckily, still, and even if this sounds difficult here in headquarters, at the country level, we're a very trusted partner, not only of governments, but of many of those that we need to work with. So I think that shows. And when we get ourselves out of our four walls, people have welcomed us, and partners have welcomed us, and I think we're playing that role. I remember going to the banks in Uruguay and knocking on the door of BBVA and knocking on the door of Santander and said, I want to talk to you. And let me tell you what the SDGs are. And what are the issues that you want to-- and that was the beginning of a very long journey, but a very much needed one, I would say. The second thing is this idea of how do we scale the infrastructures that countries need for these partnerships to flourish? We did quite a bit of blended finance in Colombia. We invested and we demonstrated that we could gain 1 to 13, 1 to 15 in our investments. And I mean in very, again, conflictual parts of the country where the private sector wasn't necessarily rushing to. And we work on agribusiness sectors, we work with rural women, we work with ex local producers, with ex-combatants, with all sorts of people that we have in our mandates to work with. But at the end of the day, we also realize, and we've studied that at length, and we provided a very detailed mapping, is that blended remains a rather niche space in Colombia. So the next agenda was to do with how to support the government to create a framework, a national program for blended so that they include blended and other elements as the toolkit that government wants to use in its engagement with private sector. So it goes beyond, you know, public-private partnerships at large, but really coming together and putting resources where they are needed. So there is a whole effort that we are unleashing with the support of the fund as well. And overall, as the UN, this is an effort with other member states, by the way, who are helping fund with the IFIs that are coming and the government itself. We come in particularly in the design of the standardized impact and additional measurement frameworks, which is often something that when investors make decisions. And I remember in Uruguay, when we created the investment committee, they were not particularly interested in mapping the gender impact of those investments that we're doing. It took you know, working together to do so, have the right impact frameworks on the table to guide the investment decisions by the banks. So that's the kind of support we can provide. Secondly, the territorial lens, and I'll say a few more words on that. And third, precisely doing this with everybody that needs to be involved. So I think, again, an example of how we convene the strategic conversations for the for blended finance to be uptaken as an area of government leadership. My last point, and I see the clock, but I'm very passionate about this, is the territorial lens. I worked in high-income and middle-income countries, but I know that in many of the spaces where the UN has its country teams, even if these are now graduating countries, there are huge pockets of inequality that are mostly expressed territorially. The gaps in institutional capacity, the lack of capacity to end debt themselves by subnational governments means that unless we bring all this potential to the territorial level, places where sometimes, as I said, the governance is not even the one we imagine, it's indigenous governance or other kind of, these are territories often that are very underserved, but very highly resourced. So the way we engage there matters a lot, and I would say that In many ways, what we sought to do and we're still making in Colombia is to be a facilitator of territorial readiness. How do we create the conditions institutionally and financially for those territories to receive the funding? So we've unleashed some interesting conversations, particularly with CAF in Latin America, which is looking at country teams around the region as a potential partner to help the risk, not only financially, but the risk in terms of the capacity gap that still remains. So anyway, I'm very passionate about this work. We hoped that these experiences that have been cited today by Oscar in North Macedonia, in Zimbabwe, in Kenya, what we are doing in Jamaica, what we did in Uruguay, in Colombia, and many other places, really became a standard for the way country teams work with you on the ground. And we hope donors and contributors see the value in that shift that we're making.

Thank you so much. Always love your passion and have had the thrill of working with Maria, both in Uruguay and in Colombia, and it has become many of the flagship examples that we showcase and we want to expand and multiply. I'd love to hear a voice or two from the room. We have a short minute or two. Is there any quick reflections, questions from any of the partners in the room? I don't know if you'd like to. Yes, please.

One of the things that we're focusing on is breaking the silence between the academia and the public sector and private sector. Because I believe that if you can do that, you can actually utilize the intelligence that you've built up over a very long period of time. In this project, we're working basically on the foundation of what has been done in Sweden since '61-- sorry, since 1961, '62. And that means that there are thousands of highly qualified people in low and lower middle income countries that can be reached and can be incorporated into this work very easily because they feel an allegiance to the thinking and to what to do and to use their skills. It boosts the public sector's ability. In many of these countries, we have a situation where public sector is a fire brigade, they have to deal with all the tasks. How do you see this? Because I see this as the best way of de-risking projects for implementation. And also, when you are implementing it, you can use a method that has been used in the film industry. You can use a waterfall method for blended finance.

Well, certainly, I know Marea and even Eva earlier mentioned the localization marker, right? This idea that we're not staying in capital cities, that we're not only building national vehicles or financing platforms, but we're also doing that more at the local level. I think that also taps in a lot more to the strength of academia, to the strength of communities, to the strength of NGOs, civil society groups. So we are more and more. we have an annual event now called the Bilbao Bootcamp, which is hosted by the beautiful city of Bilbao. It's really to make sure that we have this multiplicity of stakeholders at the table to not only build the financing vehicle, to understand how it would actually weave its way into the impact at the family level. We have to get to the kitchen table, we have to get to the clinic, into the classroom in order to really feel the change. So we really welcome your view and the fact that we have so many diverse views here. I really want to, do you have a intervention? Please, Radhika.

Finish, why don't you finish what you were saying. I'm Radhika Shah. I'm co-president of a recently launched alliance, Stanford Alliance on Innovation for Global Impact, and I work with Lisa at the Joint STG Fund Breakthrough Alliance, where it's a public-private kind of innovation within the Joint STG Fund, engaging my world of Silicon Valley and looking at the role of tech innovation, as well as media and markets. My question, Lisa, to you, sitting at that point, looking at what the RCs are doing, and to the previous panelists as well as the ones here, is being from Silicon Valley, looking at tech, of course, the pros and cons, but especially in this age of AI, how do you see, Lisa, starting with you perhaps, how are the RCs seeing AI's role? Of course, there are a lot of negatives with sustainability, water resources, but as a powerful agent to be leveraged, to advance development in some of the remote regions that you were talking about, Maria, and do you see it as a way of transforming development as well as the way we channel investments in these countries?

Excellent question, and I'm waiting for the hook to come from our colleagues in the studio, so this might have to be, but I'm going to invite our panelists for any reflections as well. We are looking at the AI space very, very closely through resident coordinators around the world. This includes the role of data centers and the challenges that brings with water and energy consumption, because we know that the tension there between providing for the communities and also for advancing this access to AI is very, very real. We do work very closely with Amandeep. Amandeep is our special envoy for AI and technical advancement and digital advancement. Amandeep is really, really pushing the envelope on AI sovereignty and what this can mean for developing countries, how they can look at the policy and legislative spaces. But I'd love to invite the other panelists also for a final word or any reflections on the two interventions, if you have any.

No, for my side, just to say that it's the governance agenda, it's the energy linked agenda, and it's the data. And I think, as you said, there are pros and cons at the moment. I think on the analytic side of things and on some sectors like the energy, capacity to manage data at a completely different scale is a very appealing and interesting one. But for the moment, as country teams, we're a little more concerned about ensuring that the development and legislative advances don't leave more people behind. So I think that's the focus for now.

Colleagues, I'm seeing a flashing red light, and so I am going to thank you sincerely for taking time on this important first Monday of the UN General Assembly High-Level Week to thank you for your participation. Thank you for supporting the Fund. I want to acknowledge the government of Spain, the government of the EU, and all of our partners that have brought us to this point. It has been a very, very exciting and important journey, one that we're determined to take to 2030 and beyond. So stay with us. If you'd like a leverage point of one to Please spread the news. Please tell others that we are open for business and we are really ready to accelerate. I wish you a fabulous high level week. Stay safe, stay hydrated, and be well. Thank you.