Policy Debate | Financing the SDGs: Global vs Local Public Goods

Editor’s Note : These papers are contributions to the ‘Policy Debate’ section of International Development Policy. In this section, academics, policy-makers and practitioners engage in a dialogue on global development challenges. Papers are copy-edited but not peer-reviewed. Instead, the initial thematic contribution is followed by critical comments and reactions from scholars and/or policy-makers. The initial paper takes the form of a structured interview with Inge Kaul, conducted by Graduate Institute Research Fellow Robin Davies, on the topic of Global vs. National Public Goods in the post-2015 international development framework. Kaul argues that for the good of developing countries and the world as whole, support from developed countries for the provision of global public goods (GPGs), such as climate change mitigation and communicable disease surveillance and control, should be conceived as an international extension of their domestic policies. Financing for GPGs constitutes payment for services rendered, not aid. Likewise, primary responsibility for the production of GPGs should rest with issue- and outcome-oriented ‘tsars’ at both the national and global levels, rather than with overstretched treaty- or country-oriented multilateral organisations. It follows from this that the distinction within the SDG framework between global and national goals is not merely one of level, but one of kind. Global goals call for distinctive financing and implementation arrangements. The initial paper is followed two critical comments, (1) by Robert Glasser, Executive-in-Residence, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and (2) by Michael Gerber, Ambassador and Special Envoy for Global Sustainable Development, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs with Luca Etter, Policy Advisor at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).