The Joint SDG Fund drives systemic transformation toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through integrated programming focused on identifying and supporting innovative policies and financing solutions. Under the leadership of Resident Coordinators, the Fund accelerates key SDG transitions at country level by fostering collaboration across UN entities, ensuring alignment with national priorities, and mobilizing diverse multi-stakeholder partnerships and financing for maximum impact.
The Fund has demonstrated remarkable operational results to date, with its USD344 million in commitments catalyzing USD6.6 billion in additional investments—a 1:19 leverage ratio. In 2024 alone, USD1.6 billion was leveraged through innovative financing, notably through sustainability bonds in Indonesia. Additionally, the Fund secured USD25 million in blended investments through renewable energy partnerships with commercial banks. The Fund's initiatives have reached over 206 million people to date, showcasing its effectiveness in service delivery and community capacity building.
The Local2030 Coalition is the UN system-wide platform and network for supporting and accelerating the localization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Coalition brings together 14 UN entities, local and regional governments and their associations, national governments, businesses, community-based organizations, and other local actors to mobilize, empower and support local stakeholders in advancing the 2030 Agenda. In 2024 the Joint SDG Fund and Local2030 Coalition joined forces to launch a dedicated portfolio of catalytic initiatives in 30 countries that can clearly demonstrate the role of SDG localization in accelerating the SDGs from the ground up.
The Basque Government has funded more than 1,300 projects in 65 countries, and it has recently legislated to dedicate 0.7% of its budget to international cooperation and is historically one of the leading players worldwide in terms of decentralized Official Development Aid (ODA). The Basque Country commitment to the 2030 Agenda is based on a traditional consensus and shared comprehensive vision of sustainable development with a systemic approach to territorial impact and transformation. In this context, the support to the Secretariat in Bilbao and the Local Coalition 2030 is conceived as an important Basque contribution to a platform for the creation of localization models. This successful experience localizing SDGs could certainly serve as a blueprint for mobilizing citizenship ownership, capacity building and innovation in local actors, both local governments, local business communities, civil society and local knowledge sources in order to foster and strengthen public-private alliances and creating roadmaps, all these conditions to ease the necessary enabling environment for the attraction of sustainable investments to the territory.
This workshop represents a strategic convergence of these three partners, building on their shared commitment to localizing the SDGs through innovative financing approaches. The collaboration leverages the Joint SDG Fund's catalytic financing experience, Local2030's localization network, and the Basque Government's practical expertise in territorial development financing to advance concrete solutions for food systems and green economy transformation at the local level.
This design workshop aligns with the 2025 Fourth Financing for Development Conference (FfD4) priorities, building on the draft outcome document which emphasizes that territorial approaches are essential for materializing development commitments and that sustainable transformations require coordinated investments from multiple sources within coherent policy frameworks driven by public-private collaboration.
As a proof of concept that local finance is development finance, the workshop focuses specifically on financing for food systems and green economy transformation - a critical SDG acceleration strategy. While the UN Food Systems Summit established national pathways, implementation at the territorial level remains severely underfunded, particularly in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and complex settings where food insecurity and climate vulnerability challenges are most acute. In these contexts, territorial systems and markets serve as the backbone of sustainable food systems and inclusive green economies, yet local governments and other stakeholders face significant barriers to mobilizing investments for agri-food systems resilience, green infrastructure, and circular economy innovations.
The workshop will bring together multi-level, multi-stakeholder actions to co-create a collective blueprint of solutions for unlocking finance for subnational food systems and green economy transformation. Participants will collaboratively develop financing models for territorial development tailored to each country context and to local needs and priorities, outlining:
Moreover, the workshop will create space for building connections and partnerships, including national, regional and local governments, with the World Bank, impact investors, philanthropists, and international cooperation entities including decentralized actors, to generate support for scalable and locally tailored financing solutions.
This convening represents a critical opportunity to establish a network of practitioners and financiers who will continue advancing financing solutions that successfully drive food systems transformation at the local level, demonstrating how a systems approach to subnational financing can create concrete pathways for sustainable development in line with both FfD4 objectives and food systems transformation goals.
