Report: UAE Investors Can Bridge UN SDG Funding Gap

According to a recent report by New York University Abu Dhabi’s Transition Investment Lab, the UAE could play a key role in bridging the global funding gap of $4.3 trillion per year needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The report suggests that the UAE’s institutional investors should focus on transition investment, which aims to achieve both socioeconomic impact and financial returns. The report notes that emerging markets have an estimated $30 trillion SDG financing gap for the next seven years, which represents less than 6 percent of the global private capital. The report highlights the crucial role that long-term institutional investors, particularly sovereign wealth funds, have to play in driving sustainable change. However, the report also notes that a significant challenge facing institutional investors is the lack of high-quality data demonstrating the effectiveness of impact investment interventions. To address this, TIL has developed the Signature Impact Framework, a methodology to measure and denote a business’s precise contribution to societal welfare. Mubadala, a key partner of TIL, has also underlined the importance of data in making informed investment decisions and is working towards improving the availability of climate data in private markets. The report was launched during the Transition Investment workshop, an event attended by financial institutions, asset managers, researchers, and policymakers, with an agenda aligned with the upcoming COP28, which will be hosted by the UAE.