Target 10.b: Development flows to countries in greatest need
Encourage official development assistance and financial flows, including foreign direct investment, to States where the need is greatest, in particular least developed countries, African countries, small island developing States and landlocked developing countries, in accordance with their national plans and programmes
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Official development assistance is government aid and sits with governments, but the target also names foreign direct investment, the money companies put into building and buying operations abroad, which is a corporate decision. UNCTAD reports that such investment in developing economies fell 2 percent to 877 billion dollars in 2025, while three quarters of least developed countries saw stagnant or declining flows. Its SDG Pulse finds investment in SDG sectors down by more than a quarter in 2024. Suppose multinationals treated investment in least developed, African, landlocked and small island states as a core objective. Suppose they also reported taxes country by country, so that revenue stayed with host governments rather than being shifted, as more than 21 percent of Amazon's independent shareholders demanded in 2022. Corporate conduct alone would then supply much of the financial flow this target seeks. ICTD notes that contracts freezing an investor's tax terms can push the new 15 percent global minimum tax on large multinationals out of the developing host country and into the country where the parent company is based, another lever owners hold. Aid budgets, sovereign risk, infrastructure and host-country governance sit with governments and shape whether capital can be absorbed. Owners supply a necessary input. Governments control the aid and the enabling conditions.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Global Investment Trends Monitor, No. 50: Global FDI up 14% in 2025, growth limited to developed economies, UNCTAD, 2026-01-20
- With falling foreign direct investment, investment-promoting regimes increasingly more important to reach the SDGs (SDG Pulse 2025), UNCTAD, 2025-06-26
- The Amazon Shareholders Representing $144 Billion Endorse Tax Transparency Shareholder Proposal Co-filed by FACT Coalition Member, FACT Coalition, 2022-05-25
- A global minimum tax: is Pillar Two fair for developing countries?, International Centre for Tax and Development, 2023-07-19
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Lead filer of the 2023 tax transparency proposal at ExxonMobil asking for public country-by-country reporting under the GRI Tax Standard.
Supports and tracks the investor push for public country-by-country tax reporting at large US multinationals.
1 campaign on record
Adopt public country-by-country tax reporting aligned with the Global Reporting Initiative standard.
Result: 14 percent support at ExxonMobil and Chevron, 17 percent at ConocoPhillips.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.