As prepared for delivery

Baku, Azerbaijan

Date: 15 May 2019

Venue: Fairmont Hotel, Flame Towers (left side from the main entrance)

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Hormetli Ali muellim (Dear Mr. Ali Ahmadov)

Dear Mr. Sahib Mammadov, Deputy Minister of Economy

Dear members of the business community

Distinguished Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with a great pleasure that I welcome you to this first joint public-private sector dialogue we are launching with the Government of Azerbaijan. I would like to thank His Excellency Deputy Prime Minister and our colleagues in the government for inviting the business community today to this important discussion platform.

The Global Agenda 2030 and the SDGs call for greater partnership between national governments, international organizations and the private sector.

Although many think of the SDGs as a UN Agenda, the SDGs are in fact a national agenda singed off by governments worldwide .

In this regard, I would like to congratulate His Excellency Deputy Prime Minister with the announcement of Azerbaijan’s National SDG priorities.  This sets strong foundation to finalise the nationalisation of SDGs in Azerbaijan.

As an active part of the United Nations engagement in the country – UNDP has been honored to be a part of this journey as a partner from day 1 of the National Coordination Council for Sustainable Development and its thematic working groups.

Since its launch in late 2016, the NCCSD has coordinated Azerbaijan’s process of SDG localization including through the review and then alignment of programmes and policies, coordination and training of working groups, broad consultations and awareness raising.

In consultations with the NCCSD, the Mainstreaming, Acceleration and Policy Support (MAPS) mission to Azerbaijan in 2017 proposed a number of key areas for SDG acceleration and suggested concrete steps for the SDG nationalization. The mission has also shown that the country needs reliable, timely and granular data to show where it is making progress and where it may be falling behind. This is why, UNDP has been supporting the National Statistical Committee to develop a portal of SDG national indicators to monitor the trends towards achieving the SDGs.

The complexity and interconnectedness of SDGs often require non-standard responses underpinned by innovations and experiments. The annual National Innovation Contest which is in its third year now as well as thematic Cleantech Ideation Bootcamp organized with UNDP support have generated the first homegrown innovative solutions for SDGs in the country. 

Together with our partners we have invested in a broad advocacy campaign targeting various groups of the society – from parliamentarians to youth, from journalists to civil society, from academia to private sector.

Over the last years Azerbaijan has emerged as one of the SDG champions in the region sharing its progress and best practices with other countries at the recent Regional Forum for Sustainable Development in Baku.

Azerbaijan is now preparing its second Voluntary National Reviews which will be presented at the UN High-Level Political Forum in New York this July.    

With so much progress achieved in the process of SDG nationalization, the time is now to embark on our joint journey towards the achievement of SDGs. 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

There is no need to convince this audience that the private sector is an indispensable partner in the efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

It is first of all an engine of economic growth and job creation. It provides goods and services, generates tax revenues to finance essential social and economic infrastructure, develops innovative solutions that help tackle development challenges and it is a central actor in addressing climate change, possibly the biggest single global challenge of our time.

Private sector engagement is also key for leveraging financing for SDGs as development aid alone cannot do it. There is still a significant funding gap – estimated by UNCTAD at $2.5 trillion per year for developing countries required to achieve the SDGs.

At the same time, achieving SDGs offer growth opportunities for business too.

According to a report by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, chaired by former UN Deputy Secretary General and UNDP Administrator Lord Malloch Brown, achieving the Global Goals could open up by 2030 an estimated $12 trillion in market opportunities in four economic systems: food and agriculture, cities, energy and materials, health and well-being.

As that report points out, the business case for sustainable development is strong already: it opens up new opportunities and big efficiency gains; it drives innovation and it enhances reputations.

Let’s take, for example, cities. By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in cities, yet modern cities face a long list of challenges, including possibly as much as half a billion households living in sub-standard housing by 2025, traffic congestion, high levels of obesity, premature deaths linked to household and outdoor pollution. Cities now account for 70 percent of global energy use and energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Affordable housing and energy-efficient buildings alone could add up to a market opportunity of around $1 trillion.

So data suggests the following: $2.5 trillion of SDG funding gap and $12 trillion of market opportunities. The question is not whether to involve the private sector in development or not. It is rather a question of how. 

This requires new thinking, new approaches.

We need to convene businesses, governments and civil society to design high-value business solutions that hit multiple SDG targets across different sectors.

Our approach for working with the private sector can be summarized in 3 “Cs”: Convene, Catalyze and Capitalize to leverage partnerships for the SDGs.

Across this region, we have been investing together with our donors and partners into supporting entrepreneurs with bright ideas that have the potential for social and environmental impact through dedicated business accelerators.

For instance, in Moldova, we are working with small and medium enterprises to come up with new products, services and business models that respond to the SDGs, such as climate monitoring smart tools to improve agricultural outputs or recycling solutions for plastics in rivers.

We see the same model picking up in Serbia, where our colleagues are now working with 7 companies on a pilot phase of a local accelerator that adapts the same concept to the local SME market, with a special focus on the circular economy.

Closer to this region, in Belarus, we are working with the Government to activate the interest of companies and capital managers for impact investment and are building an investment case for companies to take a more proactive role in generating affordable green energy solutions, education and training for future generations and others.

And here in Azerbaijan we are launching an acceleration lab to help the government find solution that accelerate the achievement of SDGs in the country.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today we start an important dialogue on new partnership models and business solutions to contribute to the achievement of SDGs in Azerbaijan.

We are ready to support both public and private sectors in developing and implementing such collaboration frameworks and solutions that will help accelerate progress in areas such as inclusive growth (employment entrepeneurship), renewable energy and energy efficiency, enhanced public services delivery as well as solutions for youth, gender and agriculture.

We believe this platform is just the beginning of the discussion and look forward to continuing it with meetings at the technical level to develop and finalize a Roadmap or Action Plan on Public-Private Sector Engagement and Partnership on SDGs in Azerbaijan.

I wish you a productive dialogue and we look forward to joining all forces for sustainable development in Azerbaijan.

Thank you! Chokh sag olun!