MICROSOFT'S WORK TOWARD ENGAGING AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION FOR ALL

As Business for 2030’s mission is to encourage businesses to help create a more sustainable and equitable future, we want to highlight the amazing work that Microsoft has continued to do this past year, especially aimed toward SDG 4.4. This 2030 goal aims to increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment and entrepreneurship. In line with this target, Microsoft continues to work at all levels of education to empower institutions, educators, and students to enable inclusive, engaging, and immersive learning.

Through Microsoft Philanthropies, the company is investing their resources to equip people, schools, teachers, and students with digital skills and computer science education. Microsoft is focusing their investments in three core areas: bringing industry volunteers to schools in the United States, Canada, and Mexico to teach computer science skills; building the capacity of nonprofit organizations and education providers to scale their impact; and supporting advocacy and collective action to promote inclusion of computer science in formal education.

Microsoft Philanthropies also runs the Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) program, which connects classroom teachers with tech-industry volunteers in order to create more sustainable computer science programs.

TEALS’ free programs help students develop science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills. As part of Microsoft’s commitment to addressing racial inequity, in 2020, TEALS began an expansion into 13 states and the District of Columbia, with a 2025 goal of bringing computer science education to an additional 620 high schools that primarily serve Black and minority students.

From July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021, Microsoft provided millions of students and young people with high-quality digital skills, experiences, and computer science education, training them for future job opportunities.

The company also trains over 150,000 teachers to teach computer science, providing them with the skills and resources to reach millions of students.

To help ensure the continuation of education during Covid-19, The Learning Passport, a partnership between Microsoft and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), facilitated learning opportunities for young people who are affected by conflict and global and natural disasters.

As of September 2021, the Learning Passport is currently available in 11 countries including: Bangladesh, Egypt, Honduras, Jordan, Kosovo, Laos, Lebanon, Puntland-Somalia, TimorLeste, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.

Microsoft is also a founding member of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Global Education Coalition for the pandemic response. This coalition aims to bring inclusive learning opportunities for children and youth during this period of unprecedented educational disruption.

Read more about Microsoft’s commitment to empower youth and their partnerships and programs which do so, check out their website.

To read more about Microsoft’s contribution to our SDG’s, check out their case study on Businessfor2030’s website.

UNCTAD’S World Investment Report: Overview and Highlights

UNCTAD’S World Investment Report: Overview and Highlights

UNCTAD has released a new UN World Investment Report which monitors global and regional foreign direct investment (FDI) trends and documents recent national and international investment policy developments. This year’s report considers the COVID-19 crisis which has negatively impacted global flows of FDIs. It also includes a new chapter, added at the request of the UN General Assembly, on investment in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Chapter V of the report reviews the investment in SDGs, with an assessment of progress made on mobilizing and channeling investment  during the first 5 years after the adoption of the SDGs. Progress on investment in the SDGs can be found across 6 of the 10 SDG investment sectors which are infrastructure; climate change; mitigation; food and agriculture; health; telecommunication; and ecosystems and biodiversity. While progress on investment grows, sustainability funds have grown rapidly  in number, variety and size. According to the report, “UNCTAD estimates that funds dedicated to investment in sustainable development have reached $1.2 - $1.3 trillion today.” Most of these funds, however, are invested in developed countries (e.g. in renewable energy).

UNCTAD groups the variety of sustainable investments into two groups according to their contributions to sustainable development: sustainability-dedicated investment and responsible investment. Sustainability-dedicated investment refers to investment funds targeting SDG-related themes. UNCTAD estimates that sustainability-dedicated investment today could be in the range of $1.2-1.3 trillion, as mentioned earlier. Responsible investment refers to general investment funds that behave responsibly in their investing strategies and operations. This type of investment is expected to be conducted in a sustainable-development-responsible manner, but it does not directly target environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and SDG-related areas. The total amount of such funds is estimated to be around $29 trillion.

The report also mentions that more than 150 countries have adopted national strategies on sustainable development or corrected their existing development plans to reflect the SDGs. An analysis by UNCTAD shows that although many of these strategies highlight the need for additional financial resources, very few have solid road maps for the promotion of investment in the SDGs. The report states that a more systematic approach is needed for mainstreaming SDGs into national investment policy frameworks and the IIA (International Investment Agreement) regime.

Lastly, UNCTAD believes a new set of transformative global actions to a facilitate a “Big Push” in private sector investment in the SDGs is urgently needed. As a result, their new Action Plan combines several policy instruments to provide an implementation framework for investing in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The plan presents a range of policy options to respond to  investment mobilization, which can be found in the report.

Aside from information related to SDGs, the report discusses how the COVID-19 crisis will cause a dramatic downfall in FDI in 2020 and 2021. Some interesting findings include a forecast that shows Global FDI flows are expected to decrease by up to 40% in 2020. The report also reviews findings on the immediate effects of the pandemic on FDI. A short-term impact includes tightening margins for reinvestment and new investment restrictions, while more medium-term and long-term effects of the pandemic include navigating a global economic recession and fostering supply chain resilience, respectively. Despite the decline in global FDI flows during the crisis, the international production system will continue to play a vital role in economic growth and development as the global FDI stock stands at $36 trillion today. The report states that the system, however, is entering a decade of transformation that will provide both opportunities and challenges for investment and development policymakers.

To read the full report in detail, please click here.

Energy investment opportunities that can drive Sustainable Development Goals

Guest post by Alan Sproule
Executive Director of Project Export Finance, Standard Charter Bank
Originally published on BizCommunity website in June, 2020

The term 'crisis' is used all too frequently but unfortunately it is often accurate, whether it's the Covid-19 global pandemic affecting us all or socio-economic crises that impact individual countries. The World Economic Forum reports that just recently, when business leaders were asked to identify the biggest risks of the coming decade, climate change was high on the list. Now that we are all faced with the immediate humanitarian crisis as a result of Covid-19, which has also quickly developed into an economic crisis, it is important that we don't lose sight of the longer term risk that climate change poses to humankind.

The United Nations' (UN)17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are among the most ambitious projects humanity has ever attempted. They represent our best hope of tackling the most serious challenges facing our societies and our planet. The investment required to meet the targets by 2030 cannot be provided by governments and NGOs alone. The private sector has a critical role to play if we are, collectively, to achieve them.

While many investors, corporations and financial institutions say they are committed to achieving the goals, capital is not flowing at the required speed to the countries where SDG investment matters most. In emerging markets alone, the UN estimates $3.9trn per year will be required to reach all 17 goals by 2030. At the current rate of investment, the UN has calculated a gap of $2.5trn per year.

SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

SDG 7 is of particular relevance to us in sub-Saharan Africa. Investing in clean, renewable energy sources is vitally important for combating climate change, while ensuring universal access to electricity is fundamental for providing the basic standard of living needed to provide good life opportunities.

The private sector is well established as the leading source of finance for power generation in most economies around the world (accounting for 80-100 per cent of power generation in developed markets). Thus, private investment is critical for reaching SDG 7, and it is vital that as much of this finance as possible is directed into clean energy infrastructure. In emerging markets, private investors provide around 45 per cent on average of total funding. .

Some of the most compelling investment opportunities can be found in renewable-energy projects in emerging markets, where growing demand for new sources of reliable, clean and affordable electricity is greatest. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), it is becoming increasingly common for governments to use independent power producers (IPPs) to build new generating capacity. This benefits the economy by attracting necessary capital and expertise and can also offer attractive rates of return for investors in IPPs. In addition, because payment is made under long-term power purchase agreements, this type of investment can also provide certainty for investors. While emerging markets offer the potential for high returns there are also added risks, including payment in volatile currencies, and less-developed transport infrastructure which adds to the cost of construction.

The UN believes that progress towards universal access to electricity is accelerating, indicating that this important target can be achieved with enough dedicated resources. However, much more needs to be done. The share of renewable sources in the total global energy supply only increased from 16.6 per cent in 2010 to 17.5 per cent in 2016. This was despite international finance to support clean energy in emerging markets almost doubling across the same period (increasing from $9.9bn to $18.6bn). Recently, costs have been falling rapidly, particularly for onshore wind and solar power, often making them more affordable, which should pave the way for increased investment. Achieving universal access to electricity globally is an important step, but this alone will not be enough to achieve SDG 7.

A shift away from fossil fuel-powered electricity generation, towards clean renewable energy sources, will be needed to achieve this. Investors still have significant opportunities to contribute to SDG 7 by increasing investment to clean energy projects.

Investment potential in sub-Saharan Africa

The total investment needed in the power sector to achieve and maintain universal access to power across emerging markets by 2030 is estimated to be approximately $9trn. Considering average private-sector participation rates of 45 per cent, the potential private sector investment opportunity in achieving universal access to power in emerging markets by 2030 is about $4.2trn.

According to the OECD, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the lowest energy access rates in the world. Roughly half the population, 600-million people, do not have access to electricity. Just over $146bn is required to achieve universal power access by 2030 in in five countries in sub-Saharan Africa - Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia alone. If international trends were followed almost $66bn of this would be expected to be contributed by the private sector.

While much of the developed world is substituting existing carbon energy sources for renewables, SSA is still ramping up its base load power to achieve universal access. Renewable energy plays a smaller role as most of the large scale developments are in gas and hydro, but the investment potential is significant. A recent Bloomberg New Energy Finance report indicates that $2.8bn was spent on renewables projects in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) in 2018 .An interesting development is that smaller scale, off-grid renewable energy is making significant progress in reaching remote rural areas and this is largely being driven by private sector developers.

SSA has additional complexities which should be considered, not least of which is whether end users – and thus the countries - can afford to pay for the power. Of related concern are high levels of debt that have accumulated over the past decade leading to a recent appeal by African finance ministers to the IMF, World Bank and European Central Bank (ECB) for debt relief in relation to around $44bn in debt service payments this year. Covid-19 has accelerated matters but the broader debt levels have been increasing for some time.

As a potential solution, many sub-Saharan African countries have introduced legislation in the past decade to enable public private partnerships and are using this legislative framework to drive private investment in power. However, to date much of this has been investment in base load power rather than renewables.

Local financial markets

While there is no shortage of funding available for renewable energy, much of the recent debt financing in this sector has been provided by development finance institutions. There is room to increase the pool of lenders by structuring projects to facilitate the participation of commercial banks alongside DFIs. The World Bank and other multilaterals play an important role in this regard by enhancing borrower credit profiles through blended or viability gap financing and political risk mitigation.

Despite the progress to date, achieving universal power access is slow because utility scale IPPs are expensive in absolute amounts and take several years from bid stage to delivery of power. The high cost of developing new transmission lines to reach often remote areas which have renewable energy potential (for example, high solar radiance or wind occurrence) but are far from power demand centres further adds to the cost and timeline challenges of utility scale renewable energy projects. In addition, governments are still exposed to foreign currency risk as the financing markets require power purchase agreements to be indexed to the debt currency, which is invariably dollars.

With the exception of South Africa, local financial markets in SSA currently do not have the capacity to provide the long-term local currency finance required for infrastructure projects without incremental foreign currency risk. There is a drive to develop local capital markets to the point where they can finance projects in local currency, however this process is slow and will be set back further by current economic conditions. Recent successes in Cameroon and Kenya, where such structures are being developed, point the way to the future and should serve as successful templates for developers and lenders to emulate.

The off-grid or distributed power solutions mentioned earlier offer more immediate solutions for achieving universal power access in remote locations. These solutions typically make use of solar technology and are at the forefront of private sector renewable energy investments on the continent. On the back of electricity connections service providers have expanded their offering to include items like household appliances, internet connectivity, and financial services. All provided as part of a pay as you go package.

As these off-grid energy providers achieve scale they will increasingly look to consolidate operations and introduce strategic partners to take them to the next level – creating yet another avenue for private investors to play a role in achieving SDG 7.

As Covid-19 continues to unfold, and as everyone is focused on the immediate relief for those impacted and on the general economy, the subject of clean energy to support this agenda cannot be forgotten. Our motto should be to do no harm and to actively do good. The investments made today will preserve our planet for future generations.

Originally published on BizCommunity (Jun, 2020). You can read more here.