Advancing the SDGs through impact investment

Representatives of more than 20 Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) have come together to learn and deliberate about novel approaches in investment promotion. UNIDO together with its partners, the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), organized a three-day training at the WIPA premises in Istanbul, Turkey, which included lecture and workshop sessions, as well as practical site visits and bilateral meetings.

The training reflected the fundamental premise that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be achieved without enormous additional volumes of “quality” foreign and domestic investments – a finding which clearly emerged during the Vienna Investment Conference – Quality FDI, Growth and Development, organized by UNIDO in September 2016.

Participants in the training agreed that the focus of international investment promotion is shifting away from the mere financial side of international investments towards a wider combined economic, social and environmental impact – known as “impact investments”. They also recognized that many challenges remain to properly identifying and gauging impact investments, and confirmed the need to adjust services and instruments to augment the various dimensions of impact investments. UNIDO received important feedback on IPAs’ interest in participating in follow-up training on specific impact investing themes to be developed as part of a larger UNIDO Impact Investing strategy.

For more information see the online article or contact: Mr. Stefan Kratzsch (S.Kratzsch [at] unido.org (S[dot]Kratzsch[at]unido[dot]org))