The Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2017 just concluded its inaugural event last week (18-19th September 2017) which witnessed over 700 leaders came together to deliver on the ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement.

The Summit showed how public and private actors can cooperate on a multistakeholder platform in the global public interest, applying creative technological solutions that benefit all.

Here are some interesting numbers from the summit:

700+ business, civil society and government leaders from over 70 countries and 160 organizations
9 heads of state/government and 70+ senior government leaders, public figures and heads of international organizations
80+ Social Entrepreneurs, Young Global Leaders and Global Shapers
230+ women leaders
60+ NGO, labour and religious leaders
30+ Technology Pioneers and academic leaders
40% business participants

Moving Forward

The Summit showcased over 25 global initiatives, partnerships and alliances, each focused on creating sustainable development impact. Through a series of high-level plenaries and roundtables and over 30 working meetings, common agendas were developed, commitments to mobilization renewed and new solutions and impact initiatives co-created:

Global Battery Alliance to clean up global battery supply chains - will safeguard workers, ban child labour, eradicate pollution, promote re-use and recycling and unlock innovation for green energy storage.

It is the first initiative to bring together players along this entire value chain of batteries that drive the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in a market set to be worth $100 billion by 2025.

A new 5-6 billion Danish Kroner SDG Investment Fund by the Government of Denmark to help meet the global goals - Modelled on the successful “Investment Fund for Developing Countries” the fund will invest in equity such as instruments in developing countries to help advance infrastructure for the global goals, and if successful, it may then expand to loans.

A National Task Force to Close the Skills Gap in South Africa, led by Jeff Radebe, Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, South Africa, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum.

The country ranks 87th out of 130 countries for human capital optimization, according to the Global Human Capital Index 2017. By 2020, 39% of core skills required across all jobs will be wholly different, while 41% of jobs in South Africa are likely to be automated.

Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Earth, a public-private initiative to identify, fund and scale new ventures that harness technologies for the environment - will identify structure, fund and scale a suite of new ventures that harness technologies to tackle environmental issues.

Based at the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco and with Stanford University Woods Institute and PwC as partners, the launch of the initiative engaged over 40 leading technology entrepreneurs, environmental experts, policy-makers and industry leaders to co-design and scale innovative new ventures, partnerships and finance and policy instruments that harness Fourth Industrial Revolution innovations.

Initial ideas include “Freshwater Watch” to model data on water and identify water risks; and the development of an “Urban Dashboard” to develop an accurate understanding and real-time management of the integrated system of city-wide energy use.

"There is incredible tension between the dramatic innovation that is occurring and the issue of equality. The technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution offer the opportunity to drive progress to the SDGs." - Marc R. Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce Inc., USA

Fourth Sector Development Initiative to grow the ecosystem of “for-bene t” enterprises - a platform for collective leadership and action for strengthening the supportive ecosystem and generating the necessary growth of for-benefit firms globally.

For the world to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, a surge of “for-benefit” enterprises that combine profits with purpose will be needed. The FSDI will, among other things, raise awareness of the fourth sector, develop more enabling policy and regulatory environments and promote new business and investment models that are aligned with for-benefit enterprises.

Organizations that have already joined the FSDI collaboration and have launched related initiatives include Ibero-American General Secretariat, Oxfam and CARE Enterprises.

Global Alliance on Closing the Gender Gap – a global platform for leaders and experts to build consensus, share ideas and strategically guide programmatic action, supported by the World Economic Forum Closing the Gender Gap project.
Disaster Risk Innovation Fund supported by the UK Department for International Development announced it will test and scale innovations that use mobile technology to help and empower people or communities affected by humanitarian emergencies, or to strengthen prevention, preparedness and response in disaster contexts.

The Fund will sit within the GSM Association (GSMA)’s Big Data for Social Good initiative focused on leveraging mobile operators’ big data capabilities to address humanitarian crises, including epidemics and natural disasters.

The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting nearly 800 operators with more than 300 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and internet companies, as well as organisations in adjacent industry sectors.

Stefan Löfven, Prime Minister of Sweden, Co-Chair of the Summit said: “There is no time to waste on this journey. Goals matter. If we are to succeed, we also need business, academia, civil society and trade unions. There will be no progress without public-private cooperation. This is a business case.”

For more information on Social Development Impact Summit 2017, please visit http://wef.ch/SDI17

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