Financing the SDGs: How Bangladesh May Reshape Its Strategies in the Post-COVID Era?

Abstract

COVID-19 has acutely arrested the attainment of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Internal mobilization of resources got slimmed as the government's expenditure on health and social safety nets have increased. External sources are also constricted owing to the uncertainties over the cross-border investment and economic recovery process of the countries. A government study in 2017 projected that Bangladesh, on average, would need an additional USD 68.83 billion from internal sources and USD 11.03 billion from external sources since 2021 to accomplish its SDGs by 2030. Using autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL)forecasting techniques, this paper re-estimated future flows of all SDGs funding sources, e.g., fiscal revenues, private sector investment, non-government organizations (NGOs), public-private partnerships, foreign direct investments, and foreign grant still 2030 under the purview of the COVID-19. Revised allocation estimated by this study reveals that private investment and NGOs would need to contribute higher than the 2017 estimation during 2021-2025 while only private investment needs to be higher during 2026-2030.