Ministers met with UNCTAD Secretary General Kituyi at the official UNCTAD side event to the Financing for Development (FfD) conference. There Dr. Kituyi launched the newly updated and expanded UNCTAD Investment Policy Framework that outlines a new generation of investment policies that put sustainable development issues at their core.

The High Level session addressed the challenge of financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including how to mobilize investment, how to channel it towards the SDGs and how to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks. According to UNCTAD’s 2014 World Investment Report, achieving the SDGs will require a significant ratcheting up of investment.

The private sector will need to be a vital partner to public efforts to reach the scale of investment required. Recent years have seen a tectonic shift of foreign direct investment (FDI) going to developing countries, but most of this investment is not reaching the poorest economies.

Ministers and other high-level participants deliberated on the question of what policy strategies and actions can be developed to better target investment to finance development.

In this context, Secretary General Kituyi announced the update of UNCTAD’s Investment Framework. The updated Investment Framework seeks to address a comprehensive group of policy areas that collectively impact a country's ability to attract and benefit from FDI.

James Zhan, Director of UNCTAD’s Investment and Enterprise Division, was on hand in Addis Ababa for the launch, saying “Today’s investment policies are very different from those of a decade ago. ‘New generation’ investment policies place inclusive growth and sustainable development at the heart of efforts to attract and benefit from investment. This makes investment an integral part of the financing for development discussion.” 

The UNCTAD Investment Framework consists of an overarching set of Core Principles for Investment Policymaking that serve as design criteria for three sets of operational guidelines or action menus:

• Guidelines for national investment policies.

• Guidance for the design and use of International Investment Agreements (IIAs).

• An action menu for the promotion of investment in sustainable development goals.