Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs)
Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs) are a country-led approach for mobilising and leveraging public and private financing for sustainable development. They help governments bring together the full range of policies, regulations and instruments at their disposal – those that mobilise and spend public resources, and those that regulate and promote private investments – and align them with national priorities. INFFs help governments and their partners navigate the synergies and trade-offs between policy areas and strengthen collaboration across the public and private sectors.
INFFs help over 70 countries overcome financing obstacles and accelerate progress toward the SDGs.
The INFF Facility supports the development and implementation of INFFs in countries around the world. Through the joint efforts of UNDP and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) and with the support of the European Union, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, the Facility is helping countries strengthen national financing systems in support of SDG-aligned national development plans.
The Facility helps countries realize the benefits of the INFF approach in four ways:
Strengthening collaboration and dialogue across government, the private sector, civil society, and other partners at the country level.
Building national capacity to implement financing priorities.
Facilitating access to innovations and learning through country exchanged, tools, methodological guidance, and training.
Promoting collaboration among international partners in support of INFFs.
The INFF Knowledge Platform enables tracking country progress and connecting with other INFF stakeholders to exchange lessons, and access resources, good practices, tools and guidelines to support their INFF development.
SDG Impact
UNDP's SDG Impact flagship initiative works to accelerate private sector contributions to the SDGs by 2030. Its objective is to help businesses and investors put sustainability at the core of management decisions and direct capital to where it can make the most difference to people and planet. It achieves this through two pillars of work.
The first pillar is the SDG Impact Standards which helps the private sector make management decisions to optimize interrelated economic, social, and environmental impacts. The upcoming SDG Impact Assurance Framework and SDG Impact Seal recognizes adopters of the SDG Impact Standards who are more likely to be contributing positively to sustainability.
The second pillar is the SDG Investor Maps, a market intelligence product which seeks to direct capital to the emerging markets where underfunded SDGs, government policy and market opportunity meet. The SDG Investor Maps are accessible on the SDG Investor Platform established in partnership with the Global Investors for Sustainable Development (GISD) Alliance and with support from the UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UN DESA). The SDG Investor Platform also offers opportunities for collaboration, including with the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact, and guides investors and businesses in delivering impact, including through the SDG Impact Standards and the GISD Navigator.
In partnership with public and private stakeholders, UNDP Country Offices across the globe carry out facilitation activities with the objective of fostering matchmaking and collaboration to realize SDG-aligned investments through SDG Impact Investor Convenings and SDG Impact Policy Dialogues both hosted by UNDP Country Offices.
Insurance and Risk Finance Facility
UNDP Insurance and Risk Finance Facility (IRFF) supports the development of innovative insurance products and services. are The IRFF team works closely with industry partners to deliver policy advice, guidance, tools, methodologies, and networks that boost country and community resilience towards socio-economic, health, climate and other shocks. The Facility also examines legislation, regulatory and institutional capacity development, and invests in advocacy, training, and education.
The Facility supports countries across 5 interrelated workstreams.
- Integrating Insurance into Development: Integrating the analytical capacity and expertise of the insurance industry into development.
- Inclusive Insurance: Providing a critical pathway to protect communities and broaden financial inclusion.
- Sovereign Risk Finance: Providing countries with assistance to deliver risk finance solutions across development, recovery and humanitarian settings.
- Insuring Natural Capital: Investing in risk management and protection of natural assets to reduce community vulnerability.
- Insurance & Investment: Pivoting insurance investors towards SDG-aligned projects in developing countries.
UNDP’s current work in development includes housing insurance in small island developing nations, risk finance in central Asia, reef insurance in south-east Asia, and the world’s first SDG-focused reinsurance vehicle. Its first major investment is a partnership with the German Government and Insurance Development Forum to deliver inclusive insurance and sovereign risk finance solutions to 20 countries by 2025.
Five workstreams guide the work of UNDP’s Insurance and Risk Finance Facility, all of which are underpinned by investments in convening, leadership, governance, equality and empowerment, technology, and research and evidence.
- Inclusive Insurance: Inclusive-insurance is a critical way in which communities and households, especially the most marginalized, can access the protection and related benefits of the insurance sector. And more than that, inclusive-insurance has been proven to broaden financial inclusion, opening up opportunities for banking, pensions and related services.
- Sovereign Risk Financing: Building on decades of work at the country level helping countries manage and reduce all kinds of risk, this focuses on providing technical assistance to deliver risk-finance solutions (across development, recovery and humanitarian settings) working from deploying the risk modelling expertise of the insurance industry through to supporting governments to develop appropriate solutions for the transfer of risk.
- Natural Capital as a Protective Asset: This area of work matches the protective value of the world’s natural capital with the financial potential of investing in risk and resilience, and the decreasing of community vulnerability through investments in and protection of livelihoods.
- Insurance and Investment: This has two inter-related elements: firstly, engaging with the investment potential of industry and the US$33 trillion assets it has under management; and secondly, the mixing and matching of investment and risk transfer in the insurance initiatives developed and implemented.
- Integrating Insurance and Risk Financing into Development: This workstream is focused on integrating this expertise of industry in increasingly influential aspects of government and community life, planning and development. This means going beyond insurance and risk transfer products to integrate industry expertise into development planning and frameworks, from rural development to investment planning, from post-disaster needs assessments to Paris commitments, from community risk assessments to public financial management.
To deliver on this vision, running through all of UNDP’s work at the country level is both the development and deployment of specific insurance/risk transfer tools and products with partners, relevant to our partner countries and communities, with significant investment in long-term market transformation.
UNDP’s Insurance and Risk Finance Facility is implemented within a strong framework of partnership, with both high and technical leadership central to UNDP’s work within the Insurance Development Forum, InsuResilience Global Partnership and Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance.
Digital Finance
UNDP and UNCDF are delivering a series of joint service offers to support developing countries in advancing their sustainable digital financing ecosystems, to catalyze SDG financing and spearhead a dialogue to strengthen the inclusive international governance of global digital finance platforms.
Through the joint work, UNDP and UNCDF are advancing the key recommendations of the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on Digital Financing of the SDGs (DFTF), which in August 2020 issued an Action Agenda on how to harness the digital finance revolution to accelerate financing for the SDGs.
The joint offers include the following three areas of work:
- Dialogue on Global Digital Finance Governance
The Dialogue on Global Digital Finance Governance, through its research and recommendations, aims to catalyze governance innovations that take greater account of the SDG impacts of BigFintechs and are more inclusive of the voices of developing nations - SDG-anchored Digital Finance Ecosystem Assessments
This service offer supports Governments in assessing the level of development, inclusivity, and SDG-alignment of their domestic digital finance ecosystems, as well as linking and embedding digital financing within the Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs). - SDG Digital Finance Accelerator
This service offer will help to identify break-through innovations which deploy digital technologies to empower citizens to help reach the SDGs. UNDP/UNCDF will use their global platforms to capture knowledge, document case studies, provide tools, templates, and experts.
The Joint Offer seeks to achieve the following outcomes:
- Citizens are empowered to improve their lives via digital finance innovations
- Governments regulate BigFintechs with the knowledge of their SDG impacts
- BigFintechs embrace governance & business practices, resulting in positive impact on SDGs
- Digital financing becomes an integral part of sustainable development strategies
Targets by 2023
SDG Finance Academy
