A “Call to Action” aimed at boosting public-private collaboration needed to meet the world’s development challenges was drafted during the Investor Forum in Buenos Aires that brought together the managers of over US$20 trillion in assets, select heads of state, finance ministers and leaders of global development organizations.
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and Argentine President Mauricio Macri hosted over 100 representatives from the public and private sectors - including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau - on November 29, 2018 for the first-ever Investor Forum in the lead-up to the G20 Summit in Argentina. Forum’s discussions were informed by the World Bank report prepared in the lead-up to this event.
The focus was on finding concrete ways for governments, regulators, development finance institutions, and investors to boost long-term, sustainable, private-sector investments that tackle development challenges across G20 economies and promote economic growth in parts of the world that need it most. Working together, the public and private sectors could be much more effective in overcoming various challenges to facilitate more long-term sustainable investments, including investments in infrastructure.
The Call to Action lays out seven specific areas for collective efforts, including clarifying definition of fiduciary duty, integrating Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors within investment and market processes, minimizing disincentives and maximizing incentives for long-term sustainable investments, better defining impact investing, standardizing and enhancing infrastructure projects preparation and making them more accessible to private investors, and boosting risk mitigation platforms and mechanisms.
