Mobilizing finance and knowledge is central to ADB’s Strategy 2030, which positions the organization as an effective catalyst of finance for development, provider of knowledge, convenor of partnerships, and driver of innovative integrated solutions.
Mobilizing Finance for the SDGs
Achieving the SDGs requires an immense collaborative effort. Public finance alone cannot meet the financing needs of the SDGs, and mobilizing finance from diverse sources, particularly the private sector, is vital to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Capital mobilization and cofinancing activities are at the core of ADB’s mission. The bank employs a wide range of mechanisms to mobilize and channel finance for the SDGs at scale.
Cofinancing partnerships
Through cofinancing partnerships for projects, platforms, and funds, both with private and public institutions and traditional and new development partners, ADB has mobilized $107.8 billion from 2016 to 2023. Cofinancing is a key pillar of ADB's Strategy 2030, which targets a substantial increase in long-term cofinancing by 2030 with every $1 in financing for its private sector operations matched by $2.50 of long-term cofinancing.
ADB partners with international development agencies and multilateral and bilateral institutions. ADB also assists DMCs in gaining access to cofinancing from global funds. ADB has actively sought to establish partnerships with the private sector and philanthropies, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, the Rockefeller Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and other emerging development partners.
Innovative cofinancing platforms
ADB Ventures
Finance platforms have a very important role to play in drawing in additional sources of capital, mostly from the private sector. In recent years, ADB has supported the establishment of some key finance platforms in the region that are scaling up finance through innovation and partnerships.
SDG Indonesia One
Considered the first green finance facility in Southeast Asia, it focuses on commercial financing, concessional funds for de-risking, equity funds, and project development with the objective of using public funding to draw in private financing to support infrastructure projects to achieve SDGs.
Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP)
A new mechanism aimed at catalyzing climate finance for developing countries, drawing in contingent finance, guarantees, and grant resources from traditional and new partners, such as philanthropies. For every $1 that is guaranteed, $5 of new climate loans could be generated.
Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM)
Launched in 2021 and developed in partnership with DMCs, the ETM will leverage a market-based approach to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Energy Transition Acceleration Finance Partnership
Launched in December 2023, with the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the partnership will mobilize concessional capital from philanthropic and public sectors, de-risk projects, and crowd-in private capital from around the globe.
Climate Innovation Development Fund (CIDF)
In partnership with Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg Philanthropies to launch, the fund has allocated $25 million in philanthropic concessional capital to help advance sustainable low-carbon economic development in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Climate Action Catalyst Fund
A first-of-its-kind multiple-partner carbon fund that will scale-up investments to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the SDGs. The fund commenced on 1 January 2024 and aims to mobilize innovative carbon finance through the purchase of carbon credits.
Nature Solutions Finance Hub for Asia and the Pacific
Launched at COP28, the hub seeks to provide integrated activities and innovative finance structuring for nature-based solutions projects and attract at least $2 billion into investments.
Expanding private sector operations
Blended finance platforms
ADB recognizes the vital role of the private sector in meeting the SDGs across the Asia and Pacific region and seeks to expand its work into newer sectors.
ADB Ventures
Founded in early 2020, ADB Ventures invests in early-stage companies with technology-enabled solutions that can scale and deliver climate and development impact in emerging Asia. The venture platform unlocks the potential for private sector capital and technological know-how to attain the SDGs.
ADB Frontier
ADB Frontier provides catalytic funding and technical support to growing SMEs that are building and transforming new local industries in small frontier markets but lack access to risk capital. ADB Frontier adopts a customized approach that allows for financial innovation and financing transactions that are highly developmental and support market development. This new initiative is initially focusing on Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Fiji, and other Pacific developing member countries.
ADB–ILX SDG-Focused Emerging Market Private Debt
In 2022, ADB and ILX Management (ILX), a fund manager, signed cooperation arrangements to help scale up private sector investments to address climate change and other development challenges in developing member countries to achieve the SDGs.
Raising capital through thematic bonds
Domestic resource mobilization
Thematic bonds continue to be instrumental in raising and directing capital toward projects that promote the SDGs. ADB issues its own theme bonds for sustainable development and supports DMCs to develop the bond market and raise capital through their own bond issuances.
ADB bond issuances
As of 29 January 2024, the amount of outstanding green, blue, and other theme bonds issued by ADB was around $23 billion equivalent. ADB launched its first theme (water) bond for sustainable development in 2010. From water bonds, ADB expanded its theme bond offerings to include health, gender, and education. ADB launched its green bond program in 2015 and has raised around
$10 billion. The blue bond program has raised about $300 million since 2021.
Support for DMCs to develop bonds
Through technical assistance programs, ADB has created greater supply and demand for local currency-denominated sustainable bonds and scaled up GSS+ bonds issuances across Southeast Asia. ADB has also supported the ASEAN Capital Market Forum which has produced tools and standards including the ASEAN SDG Bonds Toolkit.
Through policy-based lending programs ADB has been supporting capital market development for thematic bonds in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, and Uzbekistan.
The SDG Accelerator Bond was proposed by ADB in 2021 as a financial instrument to help developing member countries attract global private financing and accelerate progress toward the SDGs.
At country level, in 2023, ADB supported the Philippines’ first gender bond by a nonstock microfinance nonprofit organization and invested in the first certified gender bond in the South Caucasus. In February 2022, ADB approved the Bank of Qingdao’s Blue Finance Project in the People’s Republic of China.
Domestic resource mobilization
Fiscal policies are a powerful tool to help governments raise and spend their own funds to finance the SDGs and can simultaneously mobilize resources, reduce inequalities, and promote sustainable consumption and production.
Asia Pacific Tax Hub
In 2021, ADB launched the Asia Pacific Tax Hub to provide an open and inclusive platform to support developing member countries in three priority areas: preparation of medium-term revenue strategies, support digital transformation of tax administration, and proactive participation in international tax cooperation initiatives.
Country-level initiatives
A recent project in the Philippines focuses on facilitating ongoing complex and challenging domestic resource mobilization reforms through policy-based loans. In Solomon Islands, a $5 million program is designed to assist the government in collecting domestic revenues more efficiently.
Building a pipeline of SDG projects
in DMCs
One of the main barriers to driving investments toward the SDGs has been the lack of well-prepared and investment-ready projects.
SOURCE
A joint initiative of the MDBs, SOURCE supports partner countries in designing and managing quality sustainable infrastructure projects aligned with the SDGs and other international agreements. SOURCE allows public agencies to define clear SDG targets so that they can be integrated early at the development stage and monitored across the project life cycle.
Accelerating Climate Transitions through Green Finance in Southeast Asia
Under the ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility, the technical assistance program will help DMCs in Southeast Asia mobilize public and private finance for the SDGs. The program aims to strengthen upstream planning, project origination, and capacity to accelerate a pipeline of green projects for the region. It will provide integrated support across several stages of the project cycle: country planning and programming, origination, preparation, and implementation.
SME Blue Impact Asia
The digital blended finance platform is building a pipeline of SME and natural capital investable opportunities and uses the SDGs as a framework. The scope of the projects ranges from seaweed farming and seafood processing to blockchain technology for the seaweed industry.
Asia-Pacific Project Preparation Facility
A multi-donor trust fund that aims to support governments of DMCs in effectively structuring infrastructure projects that involve private sector participation. These projects encompass various models such as privatization and public–private partnerships to make the reshaped entities globally competitive.
Driving SDG Knowledge
Knowledge plays a pivotal role in addressing the complex challenges set forth by the SDGs. ADB’s Knowledge Management Action Plan 2021–2025 recognizes the importance of knowledge to help identify where ADB can add most value to support DMCs achieve the SDGs.
ADB’s Support for SDG Knowledge in Numbers (2016–2023)
87
knowledge products
centered on the SDGs
31
knowledge events
focused on SDG-related themes
16
technical assistance programs
with a focus on advancing the SDGs
ADB’s SDGs knowledge support is articulated through several technical assistance programs, led by different departments and in coordination of a diverse group of partners.
Regional SDG knowledge sharing platforms
ADB supports a range of platforms that generate and disseminate knowledge and engage in policy dialogue in support of the SDGs.
Asia Pacific SDG Partnership
The Partnership is a long-standing knowledge collaboration between ESCAP, ADB, and UNDP. Since 2015, the Partnership has published an annual thematic report that explores different areas of implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The Partnership contributes to regional and global policy dialogue, hosting events at ESCAP’s annual Subregional Forums, the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development, and the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. The partnership also supports a data portal which informs the annual ESCAP report on SDG progress in the region.
The SDG Dialogues
Webinar series launched in 2021 to engage senior ADB Management and global experts to reflect on challenges and opportunities for SDG attainment in the region. Four dialogues were produced in 2021 covering topics such as private sector investing on the SDGs, impact management and measurement for the SDGs, and SDG localization.
Advisory support on SDG implementation at the national level
ADB supports DMCs to establish an architecture to support the delivery of the SDGs in DMCs, integrating the SDGs into national plans, leveraging financing sources for the SDGs, developing projects and programs that will support SDG progress, and strengthening data management and reporting on SDG progress.
In Mongolia , in collaboration with UNDP, ADB is supporting the government on its SDG financing strategy. Together with Pakistan’s SDG Unit in the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, ADB is supporting capacity development to integrate the SDGs framework into their project planning development tool.
To enable the financial sector in DMCs to support the implementation of the SDG agenda , ADB has been providing advisory support on policy reforms, developing a regulatory environment, and unlocking innovative financing and technology solutions.
Advisory support on SDG implementation at the subnational level
It is estimated that 65% of the 169 targets underlying the 17 SDGs will not be reached without proper engagement with subnational governments. Over the years, ADB has supported several initiatives to promote SDG localization at the subnational level.
ADB’s e-learning program on SDG localization has completed three editions and the course materials were used as basis for ADB’s book Decentralization, Local Governance, and Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific Additionally, using the conceptual framework of the SDG Country Implementation Snapshots developed by ADB and UNDP, SDG Snapshots have also been developed at the subnational level.
In Indonesia, ADB supported the development of the 2021 DKI Jakarta SDGs Voluntary Local Review. In 2024, the Nusantara SDGs Voluntary Local Review Baseline Report was also developed with ADB’s assistance to support the Nusantara Capital Authority to integrate SDGs into city development.
SDG data initiatives supported by ADB
Only 27 of ADB’s 41 developing member countries have at least 50% sufficient data to measure progress toward the SDGs. Recognizing this gap and the importance of data to support SDG progress, ADB helps the region through SDG data generation and monitoring.
Since 2016, ADB’s central statistical database, ADB Key Indicators Database and the annual publication Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific have included a focus on SDG progress. ADB’s Basic Statistics Series is another annual publication that presents data on development indicators tracking progress toward the SDGs.
As part of the Asia-Pacific SDG Partnership, ADB supports the SDG Data Portal to promote and enhance SDG data monitoring. The portal allows the use of more than 1,000 datasets and provides the basis for the ESCAP annual Asia-Pacific SDG Progress Report.
