World Investment Forum — harnessing public-private
dialogue to galvanize investment in the Development Goals
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has long championed the role of global investment in advancing development objectives. This focus resonates strongly with the international community’s ambitious set of sustainability targets — the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — which is the mainstay of the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
UNCTAD estimates the annual investment requirements to meet the SDGs at $3.9 trillion in developing countries alone. Current levels of investment are well below this level, leaving a shortfall of some $2.5 trillion — an amount that far outstrips the combined force of public investment, aid and remittances. The scope of this investment gap signals a vital role for the private sector to advance the SDGs.
Seeking to engage the private sector for this purpose, UNCTAD will hold the fifth World Investment Forum in Nairobi, Kenya from 18-21 July 2016. This high-level event will gather Heads of State, global CEOs, thought leaders and other top investment-development stakeholders to frame tangible private sector solutions to advance the Goals.
Policy Solutions, innovative resource mobilization and constructive partnerships will be critical to restore confidence and catalyze investment to meet pressing global challenges. The Forum will seek to foster collaborative action to unlock investment flows in high-priority SDG sectors in support of the world’s most vulnerable.
Through a rich programme of high-profile events, the Forum will also provide unparallelled networking opportunities, as well as a meeting place to shape investment-oriented development solutions, exchange ideas, forge partnerships and launch actions to meet the SDGs.
This year the Forum takes place in conjunction with the quadrennial UNCTAD Ministerial Meeting, which convenes State leaders of the UN 193 member countries to determine the organization’s mandate.
Venue: Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi Kenya
Date: 18-21 July 2016
Contact: wif@unctad.org
For more information: http://unctad-worldinvestmentforum.org/
Attendance is free upon registration.
e-MFP to Celebrate Ten Years of Inclusive Finance Innovation during European Microfinance Week
European Microfinance Week (EMW) taking place 16th – 18th November in Luxembourg, is a major annual event of the microfinance industry hosting high-level discussions by all sectors of the European microfinance community working in developing countries.
Organised by the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP), one of the industry’s premier networks for knowledge sharing which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary, EMW is proud to once again welcome over 400 top professionals from the microfinance and financial inclusion sectors, from several dozen countries. To see what EMW is all about, you can read about and see the video of the 2015 conference here.
This year’s conference will provide equal focus to six main streams: green microfinance; investors, donors and funders; rural finance; social performance; digital innovations and the 2016 European Microfinance Award topic of Access to Education.
Within these six broad streams, there will be a fantastic line-up of plenary sessions: ‘Microfinance and Access to Education’; ‘Microfinance and Housing, One Brick at a Time’; and ‘Digital Finance: Full Inclusion or Empty Promise?’, and over twenty workshops on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th November, complementing the work of the e-MFP Action Groups, which will meet on Wednesday 16th to discuss the work undertaken over the previous year and the plans for 2017.
Confirmed speakers include: Mark van Doesburgh, Triple Jump; Greta Bull, CGAP; Sanjay Sinha, M-Cril; Edvardas Bumsteinas, European Investment Bank; Amelia Greenberg, SPTF; Lucia Spaggieri, Microfinanza Rating; Dave van Niekerk, MyBucks; Sébastien Duquet, OXUS; Jhaleh Hajiyeva, Azerbaijan Micro-finance Association; Roland Dominicé, Symbiotics; Anne Contreras, Arendt & Medernach; Davide Forcella, CERMi; Graham Wright, MicroSave; Kenneth Okakwu, LAPO Microfinance Bank.
Christoph Pausch, Executive Secretary of e-MFP, says: “In ten years, the European Microfinance Platform has grown to be a really important voice for the European microfinance industry working in developing countries, and European Microfinance Week – including the Award – is more interesting and engaging than ever, and something we are very proud of. This year particularly, we look forward to welcoming people from all over the world to join e-MFP in supporting the sector and identifying and influencing the innovations yet to come”.
For more information and to register visit www.e-mfp.eu
