Guest blog by Homi Kharas: Interim Vice President and Director - Global Economy and Development and John McArthur: Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development. Originally published on Brookings Institute website here in their Future Development section.

In a forthcoming paper, we zoom out on the global SDG financing landscape in order to zoom back in on country-specific contexts and gaps. In particular, we consider how much the world’s governments are already spending on SDG-related issues every year, how spending varies across income levels, and how the spending patterns link to country-by-country estimates of needs. We focus on the public sector due to its lead responsibility for tackling both the public goods and the “no one left behind” issues embedded in the SDGs and the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development, the latter including a “social compact” commitment to provide universal access to basic services. This research can be considered as complementary to assessments of where the private sector can best contribute to SDG financing. Below we summarize some preliminary findings, noting that all results are subject to refinement as we complete the analysis.

Sustainable Development Goals Online (SDGO) is an interdisciplinary collection of digital content, including Taylor & Francis’ books and journals across all disciplines, themed around the SDGs. SDGO includes more than 12,000 carefully selected articles and chapters in an online library covering the 17 SDGs, plus teaching and learning materials including presentations, videos, case studies, teaching guides, and lesson plans. The collection was created in partnership with United Nations agencies including the Principles for Responsible Management Education, PRME, and guided by an international Advisory Board of academics, practitioners, policy-makers, and officers in third sector, government, and NGOs.

I thank you for the opportunity to brief the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on this important theme on peace and security in Africa particularly to inform on contributions of African youth and strategies to mobilize the UN family towards silencing the guns in Africa. I would like to express my gratitude to the Republic of South Africa for this invitation and for your leadership on the youth agenda. 

This post is part of a series reflecting on the results of the Common Futures Conversations Youth Survey, conducted in January 2019. We asked respondents to consider a list of political issues and select which one they would spend $1 billion on if given the chance — and here is what they said.

This post is part of a series reflecting on the results of the Common Futures Conversations survey of 3,487 young people from 13 countries across Africa and Europe. We asked young people a range of questions about the how they engage with news and political discussions online. When asked to select the social channels they thought to be reliable sources of information and news.

This post is part of a series reflecting on the results of the Common Futures Conversations (CFC) Youth Survey conducted in January 2019. We asked young people from 13 countries across Africa and Europe a range of questions about the level of their political engagement. When asked to indicate how much attention they paid to politics, these were the results.

The Common Futures Conversations survey asked 3,487 young people from 13 countries across Africa and Europe to consider a list of political issues, and then prioritize them, including which issue most affects their own country and which most affects the world. When comparing global with national concerns, the survey data shows their answers were significantly different.