Domestic public finance is essential to providing public goods and services, increasing equity, and helping manage macroeconomic stability. The Monterrey Consensus the essential character of “an effective, efficient, transparent and accountable system for mobilizing public resources and managing their use”. Domestic resource mobilization also reinforces a country’s ownership of public policy. Governments may also use taxation policy to prioritize real income gains at the bottom of the income distribution through progressive tax policies. However, current domestic resource mobilization remains insufficient to meet sustainable development needs, and gaps persist between developed and developing countries’ capacity to raise public revenues.

In terms of uses of resources, there are many elements of incorporating sustainable development criteria into fiscal policies, including spending allocation, gender-responsive budgeting, procurement policies, budget transparency and removing harmful subsidies.