Accelerating Collaboration: Geneva Finance for SDGs Towards the advancement of systemic collaboration for sustainable finance in Geneva
It is estimated that it will take between US$5 to $7 trillion per year to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with an investment gap of some $2.5 trillion in developing countries. Official Development Assistance (ODA) will not be adequate to meet this grand challenge; private finance must be leveraged to achieve the SDGs.
On 29 June 2018, a group of 34 individuals from International Geneva and Geneva's private finance community met to explore how systemic collaboration between the left and right banks of the lake could accelerate finance toward the SDGs. The meeting was convened by Sustainable Finance Geneva (SFG), the SDG Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and was supported by the Canton de Genève.
The workshop was not meant to be a "talk shop" but rather to identify tangible ideas for experiments that the community could advance together to eliminate some of the major barriers to moving finance to the SDGs. The workshop also raised the need for the community to amplify and support good work that is already ongoing but has not yet reached scale; and to create coherence the numerous events that happen around sustainable finance in Geneva every year. This was the first step in a long process that will support Geneva's international and finance communities in achieving more systemic collaboration.
In his remarks, the Director General of UN Geneva, Michael Møller, summarized the immense potential of this kind of collaboration. "The shores of Lake Geneva are home to over 100 international organizations, some 400 NGOs, representatives of 179 states, world-class academic institutions, and of course a vibrant and unique private financial sector. Looking at all this potential I cannot help but say to myself - if not here, then where?"
