From the UN General Assembly to COP30

Good afternoon from New Economy Brief.

This September the 80th United Nations General Assembly took place in New York. It featured a new ‘Summit for a Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Global Economy’, which the UN Secretary-General called “the first of its kind”. Focused on development finance and progress towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the summit covered the funding commitments that world leaders have made and the huge gaps that remain. 

The General Assembly also set the stage for COP30 – the climate talks – in Brazil this November, where climate finance and multilateral cooperation are expected to be high up the agenda. 

What do these international events mean for progress on climate change and financing the sustainable development goals? This week’s New Economy Brief unpacks what happened at the UN General Assembly and looks ahead at what we can expect from COP30 in November.

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Financing for development and climate action 

Each year since its founding in 1945, the United Nations has convened its General Assembly (known as UNGA) – an annual forum for all 193 member states to discuss key global issues and decide on policy. Centre-stage this year was the cascade of countries announcing recognition of Palestinian statehood amid further evidence of genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza.

A new summit. UNGA also focused on development, climate and finance, and included the first ‘Biennial Summit on a Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Global Economy’. The summit was mandated by the UN’s 2024 Pact for the Future, which intended to “turbo-charge” progress on the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs). As a quick reminder there are 17 of these goals, including no poverty, zero hunger, climate action and gender equality, each with key milestones to reach by 2030.

Keeping promises. The first iteration of this new summit had several key themes. First, a focus on the commitments world leaders have already made on financing for development – particularly relevant in light of what Secretary-General António Guterres called “collapsing aid commitments and rising trade tensions”. 

Representation and coordination. The second theme was strengthening the representation of developing countries, who have regularly been sidelined and under-represented in decision-making. The third was strengthening coordination between member states, the UN, and international financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). 

Closing the gap. The final and most pressing theme, linking the other three, was the need to close the $4.2 trillion (and growing) annual financing gap between the funding already committed and what is really required to meet the SDGs. 

Paris Agreement at risk? A dedicated climate summit also took place during UNGA, giving countries a platform to update their climate commitments ahead of COP30 in November. Developing countries have regularly shown frustration at multilateral forums like this in recent years. Numerous leaders have made clear their dismay at unmet climate finance pledges, and have loudly warned that without new resourcing, the Paris Agreement is at risk. This is a landmark legally binding climate treaty agreed in 2015 by 193 states. It is the defining agreement on climate change to date, with the goal of preventing global average temperatures from rising by more than 1.5-2°C.

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The real-world consequences of the financing gap 

UNGA is a unique forum in many ways. It may not be perfect: it can seem like a ‘talking shop’, and its processes and language are dense and confusing. But it remains an important piece of international architecture that can – and should – be a space for progress.

Nevertheless it’s undeniable that this year the summit was held against a backdrop of rising geopolitical instability. Numerous countries are scaling back their international development financing, with real and disastrous impacts being felt around the world. In just the last year, the USA, UK, Germany, Switzerland, France and others have slashed official overseas assistance, with billions of dollars less committed toward achieving the SDGs. 

More cuts. Reasons for cutting back development funding range from reallocating budgets to defence spending in the case of the UK and Germany, to criticisms from the right of the political spectrum as in France. The OECD projects official development assistance (ODA) will fall 9-17% in 2025, on top of a 9% drop last year. Sub-Saharan African countries are likely to be particularly exposed, with health and education-focused projects hit hard. The cuts could also increase reliance on private finance. As we’ve covered in previous editions, rich countries failing to honour aid and finance commitments forces many Global South governments to take expensive loans from international capital markets. This simultaneously enables richer governments to avoid their obligations and saddles poorer countries with more debt. 

SDG progress at risk. Many of the targets that serve as milestones towards achieving each of the 17 SDGs are now far off track, with just 15% due to be met by 2030. And the $4.2 annual trillion financing gap is not only growing but is being compounded by the increasing costs of servicing debts. In fact, many low- and middle-income countries are spending more on debt repayments than on crucial areas like healthcare or education. (You can find more on the debt crisis in our earlier issue).

Tackling debt and tax is key. This year’s new UN summit also highlighted the urgent need to mobilise funds from both public and private capital, for international tax cooperation and for initiatives aimed at debt relief. In his address to the summit, South African President Ramaphosa argued that both debt relief and global tax reform are essential if the SDG financing gap is to be closed. He also noted “we need confidence that commitments will be honoured and that global rules will be shaped by all members and not just a few”.

Reform is long overdue. Part of this can happen through reform of the traditional international finance institutions like the World Bank and IMF. The design of both institutions has left Global South countries under-represented in governance, decision making and lending practices. Redistributing power – from a place of historic and current inequity – and giving countries from the Global South more say in how both work is vital. 

Going beyond reform. It’s also important to remember that many campaigners, activists and experts from the Global South go beyond calling for reform of the World Bank and IMF. Instead they think these institutions – and the economic orthodoxies they enforce – should be abandoned completely. In its statement ‘The IMF is Never the Answer’, the Collective on African Political Economy, for example, argues that “the Third World must re-imagine a path out of our current crisis that doesn’t depend on the IMF, its allied institutions, and Western capital.”

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From UNGA to COP30 – and beyond 

Speaking after climate negotiations in Bonn earlier this year, Sanjay Vashist of Climate Action Network South Asia said “As we pivot to COP30 in Belém, we demand not just promises, but delivery—real, predictable, and equitable finance.”

Funding commitments, especially to support developing countries with climate action, will again be high on the agenda in Brazil, including efforts to reach the $1.3 trillion in funding for developing countries by 2035 that was agreed at COP29 last year.

Since then the USA has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and global geopolitical tensions have continued to rise. This year’s UN General Assembly highlighted both the deep challenges we face and the growing determination to close the gap between global ambition and action on sustainable development and climate. As the world looks ahead to COP30, the focus must shift from dialogue to delivery – mobilising real finance, reforming global systems, and ensuring that commitments translate into meaningful change.