The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are ambitious objectives: not only do they call for an end to poverty and hunger, they also recognise the need to fight inequality, including gender inequality, protect the environment, provide decent work, ensure sustainable consumption and production and achieve global peace. Unlike the Millennium Development Goals that preceded them, they apply equally to all nations.

It is clear that significant reforms of the global financial and economic system are needed if the promise of the SDGs is to be met. This paper examines the features of different development financing sources, systemic issues in the global economy and the way it is governed, and sets out a programme of reform for developed country policymakers.