In July, Mayor Ann Hidalgo of Paris, France will again host the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance for an in-person meeting. The commission and the task forces last met in December at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai and have been meeting regularly to discuss ideas on how to improve cities’ access to SDG finance, with a particular focus on climate resilience.
Mayor Hidalgo, together with Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes and SDSN Founder, Jeffrey Sachs, launched the SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance last June on the sidelines of the New Global Financing Pact Summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. The Commission’s 90 members, including mayors, financial actors, and urban experts around the world aim to find ways to increase urban finance as part of the international discussions among such policy making bodies as the United Nations (UN), G-20, among other associated entities like the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s annual Conference of Parties (COP) meetings.
As the Commission’s secretariat, the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) has assisted in supporting the Commission’s six task forces that shape their emerging recommendations, evolving around three projects:
All of this work is undertaken in conjunction with the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action initiative, an outcome of COP 28 in which more than 70 nations agreed to include city consultations in their development of climate-responsive policies to address global warming, as promised in their endorsement of the UN’s Paris Agreement.
The Green Cities Guarantee Fund is in development with Penn IUR researchers crafting a concept paper that assesses how current efforts ranging from the recently launched Green Guarantee Fund to the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Company do not support city borrowers. For example, one of the largest entities, Guarantco’s public portfolio of 71 guarantees, held only one guarantee for a project in which a municipality was the borrower. Building on this work, secretariat co-chairs Mauricio Rodas and Eugenie Birch oversaw the scaling up local finance working group for the Finance in Common (F20 IC) side event for the G-20 held May 20-21 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Subsequently, FIC endorsed the recommendation, submitting it to the G-20 Working Group on Sustainable Finance for consideration in the G-20 declaration.
In spring, Penn IUR researchers prepared a key messages memo, backed up by an extensive annotated bibliography on urban climate finance, for the South African, Indian, and U.S. members of scoping committee for the IPCC Special Report on Cities. In July, the IPCC plenary will approve and release the table of contents for the report to be completed in 2027. The Commission will contribute material as the report is being prepared.
Commission secretariat co-chairs Rodas and Birch also attended the Resilience Cities Network (RCN) convening at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. Among the meeting’s outcomes was the decision to support the creation of city project portfolios as a basis for structuring financing approaches attractive to public and private investors.
This work is related to the City Climate Leaders Finance Alliance (CCFLA)’s efforts in promoting country platforms with integrated city platforms, a much advocated effort to make the investment decisions of multilateral development banks and nations more effective for poverty elimination and climate change programs. Birch, meanwhile, has made reports on the Commission at the United Nations Environmental Program’s Summit of the Cities in Nairobi and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Roundtable on the Localization of the SDGs in San Sebastian, Spain.
In preparation for the Paris meeting, the Commission has grown its ranks, adding several new members to its network including Mayor Giuseppe Sala of Milan, Italy and Michal Mlynár, acting Executive Director of UN Habitat, among other notable figures.
For more information about the Commission’s work, visit www.urbansdgfinance.org.
Providing expert commentary on urban topics and highlighting Penn IUR's research in the context of pressing urban issues.
