There is need to channel more investments into funding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Speaking on what it takes to effectively implement the SDGs, Access Bank’s Head, Sustainability, Omobolanle Victor-Laniyan, said the achieving the key focal points in SDGs would require private-public sector partnerships to ensure the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for SDGs.
Victor-Laniyan who spoke on the CNBC Africa’s ‘Closing Bell’, emphasised the urgent need for private and public sector players to collaborate in order to meet up with the remaining 10 years timeline for the full implementation of the SDGs.
She said: “Achieving success in implementation requires a lot of financial investment. Research on the estimated cost of eradicating poverty globally pegs it at about $66 billion per year. While the annual investment required to improve infrastructure; that’s clean water, power, transportation, and agriculture could total to about $7 trillion. That is a substantial amount, the government alone cannot tackle the SDGs at the national level, businesses and private institutions have a key role to play,” Victor-Laniyan said.
READ ALSO: Technical Advisor To Review FHF Loan Requests-CBN
According to her, its is an onerous task that cannot be expected to be borne alone by the public sector. With Nigeria still navigating an economically crippling pandemic, the path to achieving the SDGs is currently facing several forms of systemic hindrances and other national threats such as terrorism and increased poverty levels. This development continues to cause a decline in the growth targeted by the United Nations but as experts have expressed, the situation can be steered towards change with increased participation and partnership from various actors from across the private and public sectors.
Speaking on whether the private sector can respond differently from the public sector in addressing global crises, and more recently the raging global pandemic, Victor-Laniyan said: “The private sector can behave differently. Issues around development offer opportunities for private sector organisations that are innovative. Challenges require solutions, and as the private sector, we could provide those solutions. The private sector can proffer these solutions by innovating appropriately across various SDG areas, such as building sustainable cities, climate-smart agriculture, clean energy, improved healthcare and so on. All of these require not only the dynamism but also the funding of the private sector working in very close partnership with governments and communities.”
Victor-Laniyan went on to highlight what businesses stand to gain if they key into applying a Sustainability driven business approach stating that, “organizations that use the SDGs as an overarching framework in shaping and communicating their various strategies, goals and activities, obtain the unwritten the social license to operate and this ultimately leads to profitability.”
Evidence worldwide shows that access to financial services contributes both to economic growth and wealth creation and is therefore key to tackling poverty.
. Speaking on what it takes to effectively){kind=link}