The headline is that global foreign direct investment grew again: up 6 per cent to $1.6 trillion in 2025. The story underneath is that the money went to a shrinking club of countries and sectors. UNCTAD’s flagship carries a mandated section on investment in the Sustainable Development Goals, and that is where SDGCounting reads it. The Goals-relevant flows did rebound in 2025, but the rebound was thin, lumpy and concentrated in the few economies that were already winning.
The headline
After two straight years of decline, FDI rose 6 per cent to $1.6 trillion, or 4 per cent once you strip out the conduit flows that pass through European financial hubs. UNCTAD calls the recovery “fragile.” The growth was not broad based: it was driven by a narrow set of capital- and technology-intensive sectors, above all data centres for artificial intelligence, followed by oil and gas and semiconductors. Renewable energy, non-digital infrastructure and manufacturing all fell. Inflows rose 11 per cent in developed economies but only 2 per cent in developing economies, and the top 20 host economies absorbed more than 80 per cent of all inflows.
What the report actually measures on the SDGs
A UN General Assembly resolution asks UNCTAD to report each year, in a dedicated section of this report, on investment in the sectors that matter most for the Goals: renewable energy, transport and basic infrastructure, telecommunications, water and sanitation, food and agriculture, health and education. UNCTAD does not count “SDG investment” from balance-of-payments FDI. It counts two project-level signals in developing economies: announced greenfield projects (new productive capacity) and international project finance (IPF, the large, debt-heavy deals that build infrastructure). That distinction matters, because only part of an announced project ever converts into actual investment, and the announcements skew toward the largest deals.
On that measure, SDG-relevant investment recovered in 2025 from a depressed 2024, but UNCTAD is blunt that the recovery was “uneven and concentrated.” Announced greenfield SDG projects in developing economies rose 11 per cent to $233 billion; SDG-related IPF rose 26 per cent to $386 billion. The catch is where it landed. The top 10 recipients took 62 per cent of all IPF deal value. Renewable energy and telecommunications drove almost the entire increase, while the sectors closest to everyday human development, transport, water, health and education, stagnated or shrank.
The numbers
- The global total. FDI rose 6 per cent to $1.6 trillion in 2025, from $1.5 trillion in 2024, or 4 per cent excluding conduit flows. The United States remained the largest recipient at $277 billion.
- SDG greenfield. Announced greenfield projects in Goals-relevant sectors in developing economies rose 11 per cent to $233 billion. But project numbers barely moved, meaning fewer, larger deals.
- SDG project finance. International project finance for Goals-relevant sectors rose 26 per cent to $386 billion, yet the number of deals fell 20 per cent and the top 10 recipients captured 62 per cent of the value.
- Renewable energy is going backwards where it is needed. Greenfield renewable-energy investment in developing economies halved, from $109 billion to $55 billion. Globally, greenfield renewables fell about 25 per cent, a fourth straight annual decline, even though renewables remain the largest infrastructure segment by value at more than $600 billion.
- Telecoms and AI infrastructure did the lifting. Greenfield telecommunications and digital-infrastructure investment in developing economies nearly doubled to $123 billion; the related IPF rose from $37 billion to $76 billion.
- The social sectors are barely funded. Health greenfield investment in developing economies was about $13 billion with no IPF recorded; education drew a single IPF deal all year, a roughly $26 million school project in Egypt. Water and sanitation greenfield rose from a tiny base while its project finance fell 61 per cent.
- Strategic sectors are crowding the frame. Semiconductors, AI, clean energy and critical minerals now make up almost half of all announced greenfield projects, and megaprojects worth $1 billion or more account for 44 per cent of greenfield value, up from 22 per cent in 2017.
Who gets left behind
FDI is the single largest source of external finance for developing economies, about half of the total, ahead of remittances, aid and portfolio flows. For the least developed countries it is less than a quarter, and portfolio investment is negligible, so what UNCTAD counts here is close to the whole story of private external capital in the poorest economies.
- LDCs. Inflows rose 21 per cent, and SDG greenfield values jumped from $3.5 billion to $14.3 billion while SDG-related IPF rose 164 per cent to $21 billion. UNCTAD stresses this was driven by a handful of resource-rich economies, not a broad lift; project counts stayed low.
- Africa. Inflows fell 26 per cent to $70 billion, down from an exceptional 2024 inflated by a single Egyptian megaproject. Egypt remained the continent’s largest recipient at about $15 billion, and the top 10 project-finance deals took two thirds of Africa’s IPF value.
- The concentration test. UNCTAD’s own foreword makes the point sharpest: least developed and lower-middle-income countries together attract barely 10 per cent of strategic-sector greenfield projects, against more than 20 per cent in other industries. As investment follows industrial policy and deep pockets rather than cost and efficiency, the advantages developing economies traditionally offered count for less.
The counting angle
This is a measurement report as much as a money report, and it is candid about the limits of its own numbers. UNCTAD warns that the dominance of megaprojects “reduces the visibility of smaller-scale investments,” because data built from company announcements and media reports favours the largest deals and overlooks the small and medium-size projects that actually generate local jobs and linkages. In other words, the same concentration that skews the flows also skews what can be seen and counted. That is the through-line SDGCounting watches on SDG 17: the means of implementation, the finance behind the Goals, is measurable only as well as the reporting allows, and the reporting is thinnest precisely where the need is greatest. Read alongside the Financing for Sustainable Development Report, which puts the broader SDG financing gap above $4 trillion a year, the World Investment Report shows one lever of that gap, private cross-border investment, tilting away from the countries and sectors the Goals depend on.
Watch & read
- World Investment Report 2026: International Investment in a Turbulent Era, the full report and data (UNCTAD).
- The Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2026, the financing gap this investment is meant to help close.
Figures are as reported by UNCTAD for 2025. SDG-sector totals are announced greenfield and international project finance values for developing economies, which are project indicators distinct from balance-of-payments FDI; only part of an announced value ever converts into actual investment. The report does not state a single dollar figure for the SDG investment gap; the $4 trillion figure cited above is from the companion Financing for Sustainable Development Report.