> Posted by Sonja Kelly, Director of Research, CFI
UNLEASH Lab 2017 gets underway in Denmark
This week and next, three Accion staff—myself, Pablo Antón Díaz, and Kathleen Yaworsky — are working with about a thousand other people to make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during UNLEASH Lab 2017. As the website exclaims, “The first UNLEASH event is held when talents from all over the world come to Denmark for nine days to create real, scalable solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals.” Before I left, a friend of mine asked what the goals have to do with my work, since they don’t explicitly include financial inclusion. The answer is quite simply that financial inclusion is an enabler of the SDGs. We encourage and advance financial inclusion so that people’s lives can be better in many of the ways the SDGs address – from education to health care to housing.
UNLEASH Lab 2017 is an audacious experiment that brings together people from 130 countries who work in academia, health, education, economic development, infrastructure development, city planning, and more. The idea is that with adequate brainpower and resources, a group of people like this can move the needle on the SDGs. The events team, with support from Deloitte, Dalberg, and others, and drawing on input from more than 200 “knowledge and talent partners”, has loaded the agenda with inspirational speeches, team-based design workshops, and competitions. At the end of the event, some of the better ideas that emerge will receive funding. And apparently Ashton Kutcher will be there too for a little extra star power.
In other words, if this event doesn’t advance the SDGs, it is doubtful that other efforts will succeed.
By way of brief history, the SDGs are a set of 17 development goals spearheaded by the United Nations in 2015, and follow on the Millenium Development Goals which helped focus the world’s attention on specific targets, especially in poverty alleviation. The SDGs are daring enough to assert that by 2030, with our collective effort, the world can be free of poverty, hunger, and gender inequality. The SDGs include goals for quality education, action on climate change, and responsible consumption and production. The goals may appear unrealistic, but they are also brave.
The UNLEASH event is focused on seven themes based on the SDGs:
- Water
- Food
- Energy
- Sustainable Production and Consumption
- Education and Information Communication Technology (ICT)
- Urban Sustainability
- Health
Pablo and I are participating in the track dedicated to education, while Kathleen is in sustainable production and consumption. Pablo and I submitted proposals that describe financial education and financial capability-building as essential to creating a workforce that is prepared for the complex management of their financial lives. And as activities get underway, we’re sure to encounter a flood of additional ideas, with passionate people advocating them. We will join up, form teams to craft solutions, and who knows what will happen next?!
We’re open to ideas from you, too. What other connections can we make between the SDGs and financial inclusion? How can existing efforts to advance financial inclusion contribute to other SDGs?
Wish us luck…We’ll let you know how it goes!
Have you read?
A Change in Behavior: Innovations in Financial Capability
Six Recommendations on Financial Capability
Shifting the Paradigm: Providers as Financial Capability Builders
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August 16, 2017 at 4:18 pm
John Gitau
Wish you success, our team CFI! We are sure you will represent financial inclusion advocates well.
Shouldn’t Finance and Environment be enabler themes in all SDG forums since they cut across all other themes as the base? Solutions without evaluating how they will be funded will appear like vehicles without fuel. Similarly, the first five themes could only be successfully addressed with Environment in the forefront, as opposed to being in the back banner.
Financial education is just one component of financial capability. Had theme number five read: Finance, Education and ICT, you Sonja and Pablo would have had more leeway to discuss financial education and capability in a more powerful way. As it is, you will appear misplaced talking about financial capability under a theme that does not have Finance in the first place. Education, as it appears under that theme, looks like the general type; not unless under it will include all types of education such as religious education, social education, marriage education, health education, maternal care education, financial education and so on.
Agreeably, the listed knowledge and talent team members appear top of the range and one can only expect high octane energy. Art seems neglected, especially here where talent is mentioned.
Sonja, I like your friend’s question. I would not have have figured out an answer. Looking at financial inclusion as an enabler is a deeper view. I would have assumed Finance a broader enabler than its child, financial inclusion.