The 2020 SDGs Budget Report is a continuation of the efforts of the Government of Ghana to evaluate and define the funding gap for the SDGs in order to establish a financing mechanism that enables the country to fund and execute the Global Goals as expected.
Tracking the budgets and expenses of the nation in line with its implementation of the targets, which are aligned with national development priorities, has given the opportunity for all stakeholders to assess how much the various goals and metrics have been accomplished over the years, laying the groundwork for determining how much more will be needed to realize the SDGs.
The transparent reporting on government’s spending on the SDGs provides both Private Sector and Multilateral Development Partners the opportunity to determine which goals require more attention, or the MDAs & MMDAs that require financial or technical assistance in working towards the achievement of the goals. It also provides the Government the opportunity to adjust its allocations to ensure the equitable distribution of resources across MDAs & Municipalities and Districts. This report therefore provides insight into which Assemblies are receiving the most or least in funding towards the implementation of the SDGs locally.
The 2020 SDGs Budget Report seeks to provide data that will enable the Government and its partners to monitor the progress being made on the various goals against the investments made over the years to ascertain the efficient use of all financial resources. Relying on the same methodology as was used with the 2019 Budget report, this report successfully compares the allocation of resources per Goals and per Indicator in the 2019 and the 2020 Budget providing further insight into Government priorities at all levels – national, regional and the subnational.
As part of the Government’s efforts to develop an efficient national financing framework, the Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Finance, the SDG Unit at the Presidency, the Ghana Statistical Service, together with KPMG and ISSER have been working on the costing of the SDGs in Ghana. The costing exercise relies on the SDGs Budget Report for establishing the baseline measures. Upon the completion of the costing of the SDGs in Ghana, the SDGs Budget will continue to be one of the critical tools for tracking the progress government and its Developing Partners will be making in filling the financing gap and the additional efforts that must be effected to mobilize the additional resources.
Further, Government is actively developing the Integrated Assembly Financing Frameworks (IAFFs) which are expected to provide opportunities that will not only bring current financing sources together, but also identify new and innovative financing strategies and put in place the needed governance structures to implement same. The IAFF, which is a bottom up approach, is expected to feed into the development of the Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF).
The debilitating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on societies across the world and their resultant impact on the progress made with the SDGs to date have increased the already daunting SDGs financing gap that the developing world has been faced with since the establishment of the Agenda 2030 in 2015.
Due to the economic uncertainty created by the pandemic, Government, within the 2020 Budget has been compelled to put in place some emergency socio-economic programmes to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on lives and livelihoods whilst working with industry and SMEs to ensure critical stimulus for the economy. These interventions should enable the government, and its critical stakeholders, to mobilize more resources domestically towards the implementation of the
SDGs.