Did you know Indonesia is the second most generous country in the world, with a whopping 79 percent of people having donated funds in the last month?

Zakat, a mandatory annual donation under Islamic law, is estimated to be worth US$16 billion in Indonesia. This may seem like a huge sum, but if every eligible Muslim were to pay $74 a year, that figure can be reached. Now, just one percent of that amount is collected.

Together with domestic private investment, which accounts for almost half of all financing in the country, this represents a huge potential to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And it points to a key consideration for establishing an SDG Country Platform in Indonesia.  

The UNDP Strategic Plan 2018-2021 envisions Country Support Platforms to help countries design and deliver integrated solutions on the SDGs. These Platforms respond to a greater demand for collaboration among a wider range of actors, and they will look different according to context. This is where our local knowledge comes in.

Indonesians are generous people, and there is immense potential for religious giving and private investment to support the SDGs. At the same time, funding from international development partners is falling and the Government has a budget deficit preventing the needed $353 billion in infrastructure investment. Only $23 million has been channelled towards impact investment, a potentially trillion-dollar global industry that is still in its infancy in Indonesia.

The challenge that we have set ourselves as UNDP Indonesia is how to attract these abundant resources in the country to where they are needed, that is, to support the SDGs. Our response, the Innovative Financing Lab, is a pioneering Country Support Platform to support the 2030 Agenda.

With our new focus on the SDG financing challenge, it became clear we had to work differently. We sought out partners unlike ourselves, including commercial investors, and began working in a strongly collaborative manner, where organizational boundaries are blurred. We broke down barriers between units and invested in new skillsets and profiles, including Islamic finance scholars and young people. A platform provided the solution to consolidate and scale up the multiple initiatives underway into a line of services and a lean, open way of working together.