Regional funds harness collective action and commitments from a collective of United Nations, government, donor, civil society, and public and private sector stakeholders. Together, they implement flexible solutions to cross-border challenges and occurrences—be it regional and inter-state conflict to widespread environmental degradation, meteorological cataclysms, or fast-spreading pandemics—that a single country may struggle address alone. Thoughtfully designed, context-specific, and adaptable, regional funds complement other resource streams and stakeholders use them to support regional strategies and arrest common threats and/or in pursuit of accelerating shared aims.
Several, like the UN Pacific Strategy Fund, financed entirely by the Government of New Zealand, promote the “One UN Approach” where United Nations partners collaborate on driving SDG achievement by delivering equitable results in areas specific to the region. At the Pacific Strategy Fund, gender equality, calibration of basic services, and improved governance are central facets of the region's first-ever pooled financing mechanism.
Others employ donor-coordinated approaches when implementing cooperative roadmaps for sustainable outcomes and bridging the humanitarian-peace-development divide, like at the Western Balkans Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) Control Roadmap Multi-Partner Trust Fund where stakeholders rely on pooled funds to underwrite solutions to the illegal possession, misuse and trafficking of small arms, light weapons, and ammunition in the Western Balkans. Similarly, the Central African Forest Initiative supports the strategic, holistic, and low emission development of cross-border investments in the high-forest cover countries of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Partners rely on spatial data to track forest health and deforestation to better assist local communities in mitigating climate change, reducing poverty, and contributing to sustainable and inclusive outcomes.
