From 25th to 27th September 2015, the United Nations held the Sustainable Development Summit at its headquarters in New York. Those three days have become a landmark for organisations involved in global development because they saw the agreement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The 17 Goals aim to “end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all” – each one has specific targets to be achieved up until 2030.
Here, we take a look at a few of the Goals and how the work of development finance institutions, like CDC, support their aims.
- Goal 5 – Gender equality: In 2015, our investments helped create 326,000 direct and indirect jobs for women and the microfinance institutions we invest in have reached millions of female clients. In this podcast we look at how we can further support women’s economic empowerment and achieve the aims of Goal 5.
- Goal 7 – Affordable and clean energy: Last year, European development finance instituions including CDC, contributed 74,000 gigawatt hours to the electricity supply in developing countries. Reliable and affordable electricity such as this will be essential in achieving Goal 7.
- Goal 8 – Decent work and economic growth: Our Annual Review 2015 reveals that the businesses we invest in helped create over one million jobs in Africa and South Asia last year, at a job creation rate of 6.1 per cent – a rate higher than the reported level in many larger economies. This report from the European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI) looks at the role of organisations like ours in supporting job creation and economic growth.
- Goal 13 – Climate action: Our Environmental and Social Responsibility team work with the companies we invest in, to support them to use their resources more efficiently. This might range from reducing energy consumption to being more efficient with water usage. Earlier this year, the team’s co-director, Ritu Kumar, wrote this blog on the steps Indian businesses can take to meet the aims of the Paris Climate Agreement and Goal 13.
