As we enter the Decade of Action, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires accelerating transformational change, driven by innovation, risk-taking, and partnerships. Modeling financial pathways that are inclusive of last mile communities will be a key ingredient to enable such change and ensure no one is left behind.

The results we achieved in 2019 contributed to i) develop markets for inclusive digital finance and economy solutions that reach the poor; ii) build ecosystems and provide catalytic finance to support small SDG positive businesses; and iii) create transformative change that enables local governments to access capital to build stable, dynamic, and resilient local economies.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the valuable roles to be played by digital solutions, sub-national finance, and small business finance to support communities through the worst of the crisis and to emerge with strong foundations for recovery.

As we look ahead to 2021, when we will develop our next Strategic Framework and accompany the process to define the Fifth UN Conference on the LDCs, we reaffirm our commitment to support accelerated SDG action in the LDCs to assure that the next decade of action is more resilient to future shocks, more sustainable, and more inclusive of the last mile.