Different Perspectives - Joint Success? Private Sector Engagement in Development Cooperation

Abstract

The role of the private sector in development cooperation: Achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will take enormous joint efforts by both public and private actors in the Global North and South. When the SDGs were adopted in 2015, it was already understood: they cannot be achieved in the Global South by DC alone. It will take broader engagement and additional investments. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, 2023) estimates that the annual financing gap for implementing the SDGs in the Global South currently amounts to 3.8 billion US dollars at minimum. However, mobilising additional capital from the private sector for DC does not automatically lead to implementation of the SDGs. After all, the prerequisites decisive to enabling private-sector development to unleash positive development effects are the framework conditions and in particular the functionality of the markets. Political instability, protectionism, inadequate regulatory frameworks and unilaterally dominated trade relations all stand in the way of effectively combating poverty. What is needed first and foremost to eliminate these dysfunctionalities and distortions is not money, but rather political change.