Moving on with the agenda of mobilising sustainable finance as a way to ensure global growth, the 4th G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG) meeting is going to be held from September 13–14 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.
The SFWG has been working on three priority areas to advance the actions as envisaged in the G20 Sustainable Finance Roadmap, namely (i) Mechanisms for mobilisation of timely and adequate resources for climate finance; (ii) Enabling finance for the Sustainable Development Goals; and (iii) Capacity building of the ecosystem for financing towards sustainable development.
Along with aiming to finalise the 2023 G20 (SFWG) Report, the meeting on Day 1 will be focusing on ‘Market development and approaches to align investments to sustainability goals’. The delegates will also be discussing the assessment and management of climate and other sustainability risks. The meeting will further witness deliberations on the role of IFIs and public finance incentives, among others.
Notably, it is the first time that the SFWG has undertaken work on financing SDGs in addition to climate. Under this priority, it focuses on financial instruments for social impact investment and nature-related data and reporting. Nature-related data and reporting suffer from limited availability and a lack of access to data and metrics. There remain gaps between data analysts and decision-makers to make informed investment decisions taking into account environmental impacts. These two components are essential for enabling an environment for financial flows.
India has been strongly pursuing the agenda of sustainable development under its G20 Presidency. The New Delhi declaration is a testament to itself, which endorsed mobilisation of finances and efficient use of existing resources for sustainability. Further, a key outcome of the summit was the Green Development Pact, which is a collective commitment towards sustainable development.
Earlier, in a significant move towards a sustainable and environmentally responsible future, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alongside world leaders from Singapore, Bangladesh, Italy, the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Mauritius, and the UAE, launched the Global Biofuel Alliance (GBA) on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi.