30 October 2019

Hilton Hotel Astana, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

Dear Vice-ministers, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to be with such a distinguished audience today, representing a finance and economy sector of Kazakhstan.

First of all, I would like to thank the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan for co-hosting this event with us. For many years UNDP has been a close partner of the Government of Kazakhstan working hand-in-hand on various development issues. We have been providing policy advice, strengthening the institutions and systems, informing this with research and the results of the concrete demonstration projects at the grass root level. UNDP supports the SDG nationalization process and SDG governance structure established for that.

Financing for development is an important element of the SDG implementation that UNDP has expertise in. The latest UN report on Financing for Development shows that interest in sustainable investment has been growing but not yet materializing at the scale required and at places where it is needed.

In an upper-middle income country like Kazakhstan, the bulk of the resources for financing sustainable development and the SDGs come from domestic sources – especially from the state budget. Thus, financing SDG achievement is very much about bringing the SDGs into public finance management. This can be done by clarifying the linkages between the state budget and SDGs and improving the efficiency with which public resources are used to finance development projects. Here is important to note that the role of the business sector in SDG finance is vital too and should not be overlooked.

In response to these challenges, UNDP has in place developed methodologies on the Development Finance Assessment (DFA) and a Rapid Integrated Assessment of the national budget (RIA). DFA is a tool to identify opportunities to mobilize additional sources of finance and use existing financial resources more efficiently to achieve SDGs.

The DFA offers support for governments and their partners in identifying and building consensus around solutions to address financing challenges. It looks at different financing flows, such as FDI’s, remittances, international borrowing, ODA’s and other. RIA looks at how SDG targets are mapped into the national budget (public funds)

DFA and RIA exercises require participation of all interested stakeholders to provide valuable inputs and experience in the process.

To conduct the DFA and Rapid Integrated Assessment of national budget, UNDP in partnership with ADB Kazakhstan has mobilized a team headed by Mr. Gregory de Paepe and a local think tank Center for Applied Research “TALAP” headed by Mr. Rakhim Oshakbayev who will perform these tasks.

As a result, we hope that RIA of national budget and DFA in Kazakhstan will provide instruments for the Government to link the SDGs to its public finance, which can help both in terms of SDG reporting and having a clear sense of how, exactly, the state budget is financing SDG achievement.

We, as UNDP, are committed to build on previous efforts in order to support the Government of Kazakhstan to realize the Agenda 2030.

I kindly invite everyone to take an active part in this open seminar and help us design our next steps to the best benefit of Kazakhstan.

Thank you!