IE University Co-hosts COP27 Panel Focused on Sovereign Wealth Funds

During the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt, IE University, together with the UN Joint SDG Fund, hosted the event “COP27: SDG Acceleration through Sovereign Wealth Funds.” The event, which took place on November 9 at the COP27 DESA SDG Pavilion, gathered together Sovereign Wealth Fund executives from Egypt, Morocco and Spain, global asset managers, and philanthropists, to find ways to accelerate investments in the SDGs, specifically through SWF commitments and partnerships with private asset managers.

The overall aim of the event was to continue building a community of SWFs that fosters sustainability transformation by advancing SDG/ESG integration in SWFs and to identify practical solutions, tools, and best practices to ease SWFs to invest in the SDGs, mainly in developing countries. Furthermore, the mandate and investment horizon of SWFs (i.e., inter-generational by nature) makes them well-suited to supporting SDG-aligned investments, in particular green finance.

Opening remarks were given by Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development of Egypt.

The panel was moderated by Lisa Kurbiel, Head of the Secretariat of the UN Joint SDG Fund and included:

• Obaid Amrane, Chief Executive Officer, Ithmar Capital, Morocco & Chairman of the Board, International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF)
• Ayman Soliman, Chief Executive Officer, The Sovereign Fund of Egypt
• Constance Chalchat, Head of CIB Company Engagement & Global Markets Chief Sustainability Officer, BNP Paribas
• Rafael Matos, Head of Sustainability and Impact Investing, COFIDES
• Magnus Montan, Chief Executive Officer, Swedish Export Credit Corporation (SEK)

Javier Capapé, Director of the Sovereign Wealth Research program at the IE Center for the Governance of Change, provided the concluding remarks.

Jaime de Aguinaga, Vice Provost at IE University, said, “Universities support the Sustainability agenda through knowledge generation and capacity building. They are the bridges that connect diverse groups of stakeholders, from governments and the civil society to investors and corporations. IE University supports this ‘SDG Acceleration through Sovereign Wealth Funds’ event with the hope of nurturing a fruitful dialogue between all parties and aiding in a long term improvement of the education skills on impact investment”

On his part, Javier Capapé commented, “Sovereign Wealth funds continue their Sustainabilty transition. SWFs do not only invest in renewable energy production or storing. Indeed, SWFs support companies providing solutions in social finance, agritech, and health care. Over the last six months, SWFs have invested in Mexico, Indonesia, India, or Egypt in companies manufacturing portable medical devices diagnosing HIV or malaria, supported the pre-IPO stage of hospitals or accelerating a company using insects as protein sources in aquaculture. There is a need to continue transforming the culture of SWFs so that they keep SDG aligned and are used as de risking tools able to crowd in private investors too.” Capapé has led a decade long research project tracking and analyzing the trends of SWFs.