As 2016 draws to a close, it has to be worth a blog or two to reflect on some of the developments this year that are not about the US elections – what at its outset we dubbed ‘the year of green finance’.
So let me start at the end, and let you know that UNEP Inquiry has just launched a new report on ‘fintech and sustainable development’. A high level piece was included as a chapter in our second global report, “The Financial System We Need; Momentum to Transformation” released on the occasion of the IMF Annual Meetings in early October. Then this week we released the underlying working paper, “Fintech and Sustainable Development”, at an event in Stockholm, Sweden, co-hosted by the Mistra Foundation.
Fintech is not ‘just another topic’ in the green finance space, it is a lens on the future of the financial system itself. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Inquiry is pushing forward into the policy and practice of fintech and sustainable development with a growing portfolio of associated activities. Notably:
1. UNEP, with the Chinese fintech company, ANT Financial Services, will launch the Green Digital Finance Alliance at Davos on 19th January, a multi-stakeholder partnership focused on harnessing digital finance to catalyse green finance (more on this soon).
2. Furthermore, under Germany’s G20’s GreenInvest initiative, we are advancing a work stream on the potential of fintech to advance green finance specifically in developing countries.
3. Also, through a partnership with the Italian G7 presidency we are in 2017 taking forward a work stream focused on green finance for SMEs, with a strong focus of the role of fintech in building this bridge.
So that is one fragment of the Year of Green Finance – next up will be developments at the UN and green and sustainable finance.