Financial role in supporting the sustainable development goals in ASEAN

Abstract

Financial sector plays a crucial role in helping a country attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as Financial Means of Implementation (MoI) in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA). This report seeks to study sources and uses of fund for the SDGs and evaluate whether the role of the financial sector in ASEAN complies with the AAAA. The study shows that available sources of funds and the level of national incomes or the level of a country’s economic development are closely related. Overall, ASEAN gives the highest priority to economic development, creation of innovation and infrastructure investment (SDG 8 and SDG 9), while environmental development and earth conservation appear to receive lower priority (SDG12- SDG15). Furthermore, low-income countries, such as CLMV countries, cannot afford to finance their SDGs initiatives and hence make slow progress in the SDGs. The per-capita SDGs fund, a proxy for quality of investment in sustainable development, is also differed by the level of country’s incomes. The report also proposes a set of policy recommendations for the development of the financial sector’s role in the SDGs as well as possible innovative financing for development.