A new tool allows governments to try out different strategies to reach lofty goals

PPI is a budgeting software – it simulates a government and its bureaucrats as they allocate money on projects that might move a country closer to an SDG. The areas a government invests money in are fundamental to understanding a government’s priorities, according to Luis Felipe López-Calva, assistant secretary-general at the UN. “Our view is that the structure of the budget is really the manifestation of your policy choices,” he says. “The intention is that this becomes a tool to enhance the discussion around the political processes that leads to a certain allocation of budget.”