The Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development 2021 calls for collective action to address both the short-term collapse in resources of developing countries as well as long-term strategies to build back better following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Contains insights on current issues in research on sustainable development, featuring the SDG Index and Dashboards.

This report assesses progress in implementing the commitments and actions in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. The global economic recession and financial turmoil from COVID-19 (coronavirus) are derailing implementation of the Agenda and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Even before the pandemic, the 2020 Financing for Sustainable Development Report (FSDR) of the Inter-agency Task Force noted that there was backsliding in many areas. Due to the crisis, global financial markets have witnessed heavy losses and intense volatility. Particularly worrisome is the prospect of a new debt crisis. The FSDR highlights both immediate and longer-term actions, including arresting the backslide, to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Recommendations are included in the report.

Digital transformation is revolutionising economies and societies with rapid technological advances in AI, robotics and the Internet of Things. Low and middle-income countries are struggling to gain a foothold in the global digital economy in the face of limited digital capacity, skills, and fragmented global and regional rules.

In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.

The Sustainable Development Report 2021 features the SDG Index and Dashboards, the first and widely used tool to assess country performance on the UN Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The report analyses and outlines what needs to happen for the Decade of Action and Delivery of the SDGs. In order to build back better following the Covid-19 pandemic, especially low-income countries will need increased fiscal space. The report frames the implementation of the SDGs in terms of six broad transformations. The authors examine country performance on the SDGs for 193 countries using a wide array of indicators, and calculate future trajectories, presenting a number of best practices to achieve the historic Agenda 2030. The views expressed in this report do not reflect the views of any organizations, agency or programme of the United Nations. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.