A new UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report shows how newer international investment agreements (IIAs) can better support clean energy, digital transformation, and public health, while protecting governments’ right to regulate in the public interest. It offers practical examples from recent treaties and a menu of policy options to help countries update older rules and align investment with today’s priorities.

This policy resource is based on an UNCTAD-OECD report informing the Group of 20 (G20) Trade and Investment Working Group in 2025, at the invitation of the South African G20 Presidency.

The report distils provisions and treaty language employed in G20 IIAs that preserve regulatory space, promote responsible business conduct and proactively facilitate sustainable investment in the three focus areas identified as key priorities by the South African G20 Presidency. The findings of the report are summarized in a toolbox, which provides a menu of new-generation IIA policy options to harness international investment policies for investment in clean energy, digital transformation and public health.

The toolbox builds on UNCTAD's extensive analytical and policy expertise on IIAs, and its long-standing work to align the IIA regime with sustainable development. Guidance included in UNCTAD's Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development, as well as the latest research in UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2023: Investing in Sustainable Energy for All and the World Investment Report 2025: International Investment in the Digital Economy provide governments with knowledge to enhance investment policies and the sustainable development impacts of FDI.

The IIA toolbox on clean energy, digital transformation and public health continues UNCTAD's engagement with G20 members on investment policymaking from previous years. Under the Brazilian G20 presidency in 2024, UNCTAD produced a report Mapping Sustainable Development and Investment Facilitation Provisions in IIAs concluded by G20 Members and Invited Countries, with inputs from the OECD.

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