Sustainable Development Goals : Harnessing Business to Achieve the SDGs Through Finance, Technology and Law Reform

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through Finance, Technology and Law Reform

Achieving the SDGs requires a fundamental rethink from businesses and governments across the globe. To make the ambitious goals a reality, trillions of dollars need to be harnessed to mobilise finance and accelerate progress towards the SDGs.

Bringing together leaders from the World Bank, the financial and business sectors, the startup community and academia, this important, topically relevant volume explains what the SDGs are, how they came about and how they can be accelerated. Real-world case studies and authoritative insights address how to direct investment of existing financial resources and re-align the global financial system to reflect the SDGs.

In depth chapters discuss how financial institutions, such as UBS Wealth Management, Manulife Asset Management and Moody’s Rating Agency are supporting the SDGs. The opportunities arising from Blockchain, Big Data, Digital Identity and cutting-edge FinTech and RegTech applications are explored, whilst the relevance of sustainable and transparent global supply chains is underscored. Significant attention is paid to law reform which can accelerate progress of the SDGs through SME Financing, Crowdfunding, Peer-to-Peer Lending and tax restructuring.

To achieve the ‘World We Want’, much needs to be done. The recommendations contained within this book are critical for supporting a fundamental shift in thinking from business and governments around the world, and for building a more just and prosperous future for all.

JULIA WALKER is a senior global business executive with 20 years experience in the private sector principally in finance, technology, and risk management. She currently runs market growth and strategy in Asia for one of the world’s largest providers of financial markets data, Infrastructure, and Risk Intelligence and is a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Task Force of Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals.

DR ALMA PEKMEZOVIC is a consultant to the Asian Development Bank, Sydney, Australia. Her key areas of expertise include capital markets law, corporate law and governance, and commercial law reform. During 2006 to 2015, Dr. Pekmezovic taught corporate and commercial law at La Trobe University School of Law, Melbourne, Australia. She was formerly a Lecturer in Law at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg (2015–2018) and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany.

DR GORDON WALKER SJD (Duke) is an Emeritus Professor of La Trobe University; Adjunct Professor at Curtin University School of Law; Visiting Professor, University of Padua Law School, Italy; and an advisor to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) designated as International Business Law Expert and International Financial Sector Expert. His research contracts at the ADB principally involve law reform in the areas of securities regulation, company, secured transactions and FinTech within the Private Sector Development Initiative (PSDI-III) in the South Pacific.