Deep Dive - SSTC in the UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub

SSTC in the UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub

“UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub will continue to work with partners as a trusted knowledge broker, partnership facilitator, and capacity-development supporter for South-South and triangular cooperation, and leverage its networks, expertise and experience to mobilize opportunities and technical resources for Africa’s sustainable development agenda.”

- Ankun Liu, UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub

UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub (ASFH), since its establishment in 2019, has been promoting South-South Cooperation and financing for sustainable development across African countries, particularly the development and implementation of Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFF), covering an integrated spectrum of public and private finance areas.

Examples:

I. Regional reporting and codification of good practices on SSTC:

ASFH, jointly with UNDP AccLabs, HQ and UNOSSC, has been working on the mapping and promotion of best practices of SSTC in Africa, and has produced several key reports to demonstrate Africa’s achievements in SSTC and showcase African development solutions in areas such as pandemic responses, governance, climate change, disaster risk reduction, energy, agro-food, environment, and inclusiveness:

• First African South-South Cooperation Report (2019)
• Good Practices in South-South and Triangular Cooperation: Scaling up Made-in-Africa Solutions (2021)
• Accelerating COVID-19 Recovery through Pan-African Solidarity (2022)

II. SSC in INFF implementation:

South-South cooperation has been embedded in ASFH’s work on development financing, including through Integrated National Financing Frameworks, the Tax4SDG initiative and the regional diaspora project, among others.

• Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFF): The aim of INFF is to establish a comprehensive national framework for financing sustainable development priorities, and achieve better integration between financing and national planning, between public finance and private finance, and between public and private actors. Three key milestones of the INFF process are: (1) Development Finance Assessment; (2) Integrated Financing Strategy; (3) Implementation of actions in the Financing Strategy.
• We successfully inaugurated in 2022 the continental south-south exchange platform on INFF during the African INFF and Open Budget Workshop in Abuja, connecting with regional partners and national technocrats (54 countries/300+ participants) with similar development financing challenges. A map for future South-South exchanges on development financing across Africa has been elaborated following the event.
• In 2022, bilateral South-South exchanges have also been facilitated between 11 countries in Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, R. Congo, Rwanda, and Tanzania) on green and blue finance, taxation, diaspora investment, SDG bonds, and the development of financing strategies.

• Tax4SDG: The regional project on taxation in Africa aims to enhance domestic resource mobilization by strengthening the capacity of national tax authorities to combat tax avoidance, tax evasion, and illicit financial flows. It promotes the alignment of tax and fiscal policies with the SDGs and ensures that African perspectives and evidence are included in regional and international discussions on taxation. This involves addressing illicit financial flows and tax evasion through Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) programs to assess and raise additional tax revenues. As of end of 2022, TIWB had completed 57 programmes spanning 37 jurisdictions in Africa, including 15 South-South TIWB programmes (ongoing and completed).
• Diaspora: A Joint Framework programme developed by the African Union Commission (AUC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNDP ASFH has been launched to galvanize efforts and support African countries in creating an enabling environment to maximize the socio-economic development potential of diasporas (financial and human capitals), including by facilitating capacity development, exchange lessons learned and activate country networks through South-South cooperation.

Focal point: Ankun Liu, SDG Finance and South-South Cooperation Specialist, UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub, ankun.liu@undp.org

You can learn more details about UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub by visiting here.