Significance and Implementation of the Global Development Initiative

The landscape of international situation is undergoing profound changes with growing challenges. How to narrow the development deficit and break through the development predicament is a task faced by the human society. In September 2021, President Xi Jinping put forward the Global Development Initiative (GDI) in his statement at the general debate of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, calling upon countries worldwide to stay committed to development as a priority, stay committed to a people-centered approach, stay committed to benefits for all, stay committed to innovation-driven development, stay committed to harmony between man and nature, and stay committed to results-oriented actions, so as to pursue more robust, greener and more balanced global development. The GDI has greatly facilitated the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and embodies China’s wisdom and strength in responding to global challenges.

A Catalyst for Accelerated Implementation of the

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Global sustainable development, which is in a critical period, is gravely frustrated by factors such as protracted and escalating geopolitical conflicts, proliferation and intensification of protectionism and overstretching of the concept of security.

First, the importance of development is declining. Countries worldwide urgently need to reach a consensus on accelerating development as it is under the threat of being politicized and marginalized. The US and its Western allies, with an aim to divert attention from domestic issues, and maintain their geopolitical interests and monopoly positions, have been hyping up the strategic competition among major powers, overstretching the concept of economic security, artificially building walls and barriers, and pushing for decoupling and severing of supply chains. All these have put the global development under a huge threat of being politicized and marginalized. Many normal exchanges and cooperation between countries conducive to sustainable development are becoming increasingly difficult, including international trade and investment, educational exchanges, scientific and technological cooperation, and cross-border travel. If this trend continues, development will be at the risk of slipping off the agenda of both domestic and international politics. What’s worse, the international community will fail to work together to deal with issues such as climate change, public health crises, and challenges brought by disruptive technologies. According to the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024 released by the UN in June 2024, realization of the sustainable development goals as scheduled is facing severe challenges. Only 17% of the 169 targets of sustainable development goals are on track, nearly half are showing minimal or moderate progress, and progress on over one third has stalled or even regressed. By 2030, nearly 600 million people may still live in extreme poverty if current trends persist.

Second, there is a huge financing gap for development. Financial input is urgently needed for realization of the SDGs. As the Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2024: Financing for Development at a Crossroads released by the UN in April 2024 pointed out, financing challenges are at the heart of the current sustainable development crisis. Only by massively increasing financing for development and promoting the reform of the international financial architecture can the SDGs be rescued. The World Investment Report 2024 published by UNCTAD in June of the same year also showed that the mobilization of funds for SDG investment through sustainable finance products in global capital markets is slowing down due to global economic fracturing trends and geopolitical tensions. SDG investment has witnessed a 10% decrease with the most significant declines seen in two sectors, agrifood systems, also water and sanitation. However, in the face of the needs for sustainable development, developed countries have long failed to fulfill their commitments to foreign development aid. The official development assistance of OECD-DAC members only accounts for 0.37% of their gross national income, far below the promised 0.7%. Therefore, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has publicly called for relevant countries to agree to a $500 billion annual stimulus for sustainable development and to provide affordable long-term financing for developing countries.

Third, the development gap between the North and the South keeps widening. Studies have shown that the fruits of globalization and industrialization have been distributed extremely unevenly across the globe. Different groups of countries vary a lot in the pace of achieving the SDGs, and the inequality between the richest and the poorest countries has increased. Compared with developed countries, developing countries are more vulnerable when facing challenges such as geopolitical conflicts, climate change and public health crises. Secretary-General Guterres said that the allocation of Special Drawing Rights issued during the pandemic was grossly unfair. G7 countries, with less efforts made to address global development issues, received 280 billion US dollars in SDRs. In contrast, least developed countries, with a population of 1.1 billion people, were allocated just over 8 billion US dollars. According to data released by UNCTAD, although global Official Development Assistance (ODA) reached record levels in 2022, aid specifically targeted at developing regions declined by 2%, or $4 billion.