Assessing financing costs of sustainable development

The unfavourable external environment facing developing countries makes domestic resource mobilization and efficient allocation and utilization of domestically mobilized resources all the more important for the promotion of sustainable development. In a number of countries, policies are necessary to correct misdirected public spending, large budget deficits and other macroeconomic imbalances, restrictive policies and distortions in the areas of exchange rates, investment and finance, and obstacles to entrepreneurship. In developed countries such policy reforms would help to release resources for supporting the transition to sustainable development domestically and for supporting such a transition in developing countries. An increase in domestic savings in developed countries would be a complement to policies to restrain consumption on environmental grounds.

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities.

Assessment techniques aim at strengthening national capabilities for design and implementation of commodity policy, use and management of national resources and the gathering and utilization of information on commodity markets.