The Road to the SDGs

T H E R O A D T O T H E S D G s | P R O G R E S S A N D A C H I E V E M E N T S Introduction Our MCs will face a multitude of tough decisions in the coming years in response to major challenges One of these is the need to cater for a growing youth population, projected to increase by 100 million between 2015 and 2030, with a pressing need to find ways to cope with a worsening trade deficit in 22 out of 25 industries Various factors exacerbate this problem, not least the implications of the fourth industrial revolution, an estimated SDGs financing gap of US$1 trillion annually that dwarfs the available annual global Official Development Assistance funding of US$135 billion per year, and the outbreak in 2020 of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has challenged even the capacities of the world’s richest and most stable nations In response to these challenges, IsDB’s new business model introduces a completely revamped country engagement standard It is based on building industry-led global coalition networks aimed at enabling orchestrated re-globalisation at an unprecedented scale, thus shaping new frontiers for sustainable growth in MCs [ 209 ]