The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Haifu International Finance Holding Group Limited (HIFC) today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
The agreement is the first under the new United Nations Social Impact Fund (UNSIF), which aims to create partnerships between participating UN agencies and impact investors to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
With HIFC’s support, UNSIF will raise grants and market capital for socially responsible businesses, especially growing, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that will generate social and environmental impact.
The partnership aims at engaging financial and social capital stakeholders to create an ecosystem for social entrepreneurs, while supporting government or non-government stakeholders that are planning to introduce or expand social impact.
The MOU was signed by Mr. Haoliang Xu, UNDP’s Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, and Mr. Jianwen Chen, HIFC’s Chairman.
“Investors will play a much bigger role in the future of development,” said Haoliang Xu. “We believe that HIFC is a partner that will help us attract investors from Asia-Pacific to embrace the idea of social impact investing.”
The UNSIF is a response to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, which underscored the importance of aligning private investment with sustainable development.
The UN has forecast that achievement of the SDGs worldwide by 2030 will require an investment of about $3.3 to $4.5 trillion a year. To put that sum in perspective, Official Development Assistance last year amounted to US$131.6 billion.
“We are proud to be a partner of UNSIF,” said Chen. “We were impressed with their commitment to innovation in financing for development. We thought this is a good match for our own drive for innovation and results.”
Apart from accelerating the application of blended finance and social impact investment models, UNSIF will also initiate a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) research programme that would define a new hybrid set of indicators for social impact.
“UNSIF provides a solution to increase the scale and effectiveness of impact investing. Our blended finance approach is market-based and strategic, and it’ll serve as a win-win-win model for partnering UN agencies, investors, and social enterprise in the long run,” said David Galipeau, Chief of UNSIF Secretariat.
UNSIF is a partnership of UNEP, UNCDF, UNFPA and UNDP. The Secretariat office of UNSIF is hosted by UNDP in Bangkok.
