Message from Abdelhak S. Senhadji Deputy Director Fiscal Affairs Department International Monetary Fund which may be of interested to members not linked into the IMF
The IMF launched an innovative online tool in April to assist policymakers in designing financing strategies for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The tool, SDG-FiT, allows users to evaluate policy choices that can raise long-term economic growth, mobilize government revenue, and attract private investment for development. SDG-FiT is based on the IMF Staff Discussion Note “A Post-Pandemic Assessment of the Sustainable Development Goals,” which lays out a macroeconomic framework for assessing the post-COVID-19 financing needs in five sectors of the SDGs: electricity, water and sanitation, roads, health, and education. SDG-FiT has transformed this framework into an online tool that can be used to assess SDG financing gaps and evaluate policy options to close them with macroeconomic consistency.
SDG-FiT is flexible and user-friendly thanks to its powerful visual storytelling features, making a complex framework accessible to a general audience. Users can experiment with policy scenarios building on a baseline (current policy) scenario whose underlying data are pre-populated using estimates and projections by the IMF and the United Nations. In particular, the costing of SDGs in each of the five sectors is based on detailed estimates for 107 countries undertaken by IMF staff and the baseline macroeconomic projections are sourced from the World Economic Outlook. SDG-FiT computes financing gaps in the baseline by comparing the SDG costing estimates for reaching the SDGs by 2030 and the current levels of spending on these SDGs. The tool then allows users to specify financing channels to close or reduce the financing gaps in policy scenarios. These channels cover policy changes that alter: (i) revenue, including tax and non-tax revenues; (ii) government borrowing and deficit; (iii) allocation of existing resources to SDGs; and (iv) private financing.
SDG-FiT is online to try it out. Should there be any questions or encounter any difficulties in using it, please contact the IMF's designated team for help (SDG-FiT SDG-FiT-Support@imf.org). Feed back is welcomed.
SDG web page
https://sdgfit.imf.org/sdginfopages/index.html
