Does the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals agenda, or the 2030 Agenda, represent an economic development challenge or a global finance challenge?

The question itself is a perfect example of an “either-or” fallacy. Achieving the SDGs in general—and achieving this agenda in the world’s 46 least developed countries (LDCs), which UNCDF sees as the frontier markets of today and the growth markets of tomorrow—represents both a challenge of economic development and global finance. Ultimately, the challenge of ensuring that we truly leave no one behind is a quintessentially a hybrid challenge. Addressing this hybrid challenge speaks precisely to the value proposition of the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).

The North Star of UNCDF is to operate as a hybrid organization that is both a development organization and a development finance institution. At a practical level, this means that UNCDF will complement traditional grant-making and technical assistance with an increased and mainstreamed use of financing capabilities and instruments, including loans, guarantees and blended finance funds across areas of technical expertise.

The results reflected in UNCDF’s 2021 Annual Report reflects this hybrid nature that drives the organization’s mission: to serve as the United Nations flagship catalytic financing entity for the LDCs to strengthen financing mechanisms and systems for structural transformation.

2021 was a year where the markets UNCDF served were suffering from many of the worst impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, lack of digital infrastructure, gender inequality, under-capitalized local governments, political instability and the devastating impacts of COVID-19. Yet despite these challenges, UNCDF in partnership with public and private sector actors as well as its UN sister organizations