Tag: UNDP

[RECAP] UNLEASH Innovation Lab 2018

Posted on | by David Soukhasing | Leave a Comment on [RECAP] UNLEASH Innovation Lab 2018

UNLEASH Innovation lab is a global non-profit initiative that brings together 1000+ passionate young talents, experts and facilitators from all around the world to collaborate on ideas and solutions for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNLEASH was first held in August in Denmark in 2017. This year the UNLEASH Innovation Lab was held in Singapore from May 30, 2018 to June 6, 2018. It featured 1000 carefully selected talents from 100+ countries and diverse backgrounds, who participated in 8 days of intense ideation to unlock the power of collaboration and human innovation to provide solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. I was fortunate enough to be selected from a pool of more than 7,000 applicants to attend and participate in the UNLEASH Innovation Lab in Singapore this year.

Inspiring and thought-provoking speeches from experts and leaders such as President of Singapore Halimah Yacob, former President of Timor Leste, Jose Ramos-Horta, Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker and the social humanoid robot, Sophia, were some of the highlights of this year’s event.

This year, UNLEASH focused on 8 SDGs: Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well Being, Quality Education, Clean Water and Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Responsible Supply Chain and Production, Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Climate Action. The participants, called Unleash talents, were divided among these 8 categories. In a team consisting of amazing 6 individuals, I worked on SDG 12, Responsible Supply Chain and Production, and developed a solution to tackle the problem of food waste by supermarkets at the consumer level. My team created ‘Second Life Shelves’, an offline and online platform that enables supermarkets to connect with consumers to sell the food that is approaching the specified date (use by, sell by or best before) using a dynamic pricing algorithm.

During the eight-days program, the teams followed a structured innovation process facilitated by content and business experts to co-create innovative ideas and solutions for the designated SDGs. UNLEASH’s innovation process consists of five steps: problem framing, ideation, prototyping, testing and implementation. The teams were carefully formulated to ensure diversity in terms of experience and strengths. Many people might argue that innovation and ideation cannot be structured via pre-determined activities and steps, however, UNLEASH believes that with the help of a structured set of activities and design thinking, teams can co-create and innovate to develop viable solutions for a variety of problems.

Although my team did not win awards for the solution that we developed, I brought home invaluable experiences and gained immense knowledge about how innovation and collaboration can be used for creating an impact and changing the world. I am so glad to have participated in UNLEASH 2018, and to have met so many amazing, inspiring and like-minded individuals that I, now, can call my “UNLEASH Family”.

 

UNLEASH is a global non-profit initiative that is supported by various global actors, including UNDP, Deloitte, Carlsberg Foundation, and Dalberg. UNLEASH will be hosting the innovation lab every year until 2030 with an aim to tackle the SDGs. It’s exciting to see UNLEASH creating a wave of change around the world and inspiring thousands every year to create a better and more sustainable world.

Find out more at www.unleash.org

If you would like to know more about my experience at UNLEASH, shoot me an email at riaz@angin.id

[OPINION] Six reasons why it is important for the UN and financial sector to partner on SDG financing

Posted on | by angin

Original Article available here: http://www.daghammarskjold.se/six-reasons-why-the-un-and-financial-sector-must-partner-on-sdg-financing/

The financial sector is a critical partner for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is especially true when it comes to financing. Defining the SDGs as a trillion dollar investment opportunity rather than a funding shortfall may seem obvious to business but the United Nations is just starting to catch on. It began with the Addis Ababa conference on Financing for Development that took place in 2015, and since then, annual meetings – happening now – of the ECOSOC responsible for follow-up.

Commercial financing is not only ‘nice to have’ but an essential prerequisite for achieving the SDGs. As a matter of urgency, UN reform must equip the UN to partner with the financial sector for channeling financing to where it is needed most. This is work UNDP have in fact begun in Indonesia and which we recently shared with UN colleagues and other financial sector partners during a workshop organised by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the UN Development Operations Coordination Office (UNDOCO).

For two days we sat together in the Foundation’s Centre in Uppsala with the portrait of the second Secretary General looking over us in support. We were tasked to take a critical, honest look at how the UN and private capital can work together for sustainable development and identify the UN reforms that are needed to make it happen. Indonesia was invited as one of three countries, the other two being Armenia and Kenya, where the UN has advanced work around innovative financing with financial sector partners. But why is this partnership important?

Six reasons

The financial sector and the UN represent different worlds, with different languages, cultures and interests. This makes the collaboration at once challenging but also potentially groundbreaking. Here are six reasons why we should collaborate:

  1. Filling the development financing gap: Investments can fill the funding gap but also bring a new kind of resources for development projects that are demand driven and more likely to provide long-term solutions. In Indonesia, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Angel Investment Network Indonesia (ANGIN) designed an SDG Impact Fund which is to provide financing to social enterprises in the agricultural value chain. These social enterprises are part of the ‘missing middle’ – they do not want grant funding and are ready to receive investments but are too large for micro-finance and do not have liquid enough assets for accessing finance from banks.
  2. Providing new deal flow that scales development initiatives: Investors increasingly demand a robust rate of new business proposals and investment opportunities, which finance professionals refer to as deal flow. The UN can help bridge investors and deal flow by building and sharing a pipeline of projects and enterprises in need for growth and expansion capital. In this way, the financial sector can scale viable projects when Government and development organisations exit. UNDP and ANGIN held a Roadshow in Sumatra and Sulawesi earlier this year to identify social enterprises that can become a pipeline of investments.
  3. Harnessing capital’s transformatory potential: Together we can harness the transformatory potential of capital and change the overall approach to finance. For the UN, influencing the entire continuum of capital so investments are made greener, more sustainable and inclusive, is influencing large scale change. UNDP, in countries such as Indonesia and Armenia, brings innovative tools to financing SDGs such as impact bonds and impact funds and is exploring how blending commercial finance with concessionary finance or grants opens up new investment possibilities by addressing investor concerns about risks. In Indonesia, UNDP supported the Ministry of Finance in issuing the world’s first sovereign green Islamic bond (sukuk) thereby channeling investment to combating climate change and are now encouraging the private sector to follow suit and issue corporate green bonds.
  4. Enhancing transparency and accountability: The introduction of new technologies, standards, certifications and oversight measures by the UN can enhance accountability and transparency in areas where their absence is a main risk factor increasing costs of doing business and inhibiting investment. For example, UNDP is exploring with partners blockchain technologies as a means to enhance transparency in the management of religious funds such as zakat and waqf to increase trust in institutions managing those funds.
  5. A conducive policy environment: The UN is well positioned to work with the Government to provide a conducive policy and regulatory environment for SDG financing based on the private sectors understanding of the policy gaps, hindrances and expected incentives to investment. In Indonesia, UNDP collaborates with the Financial Services Authority of Indonesia to enhance the policy environment for private investment in SDGs, by for example putting in place regulations that will support impact investment.
  6. Promoting innovation: Partnership between business and the UN is essential for innovation. Innovation isn’t created in a vacuum but comes from collaboration between unusual partners with aligned missions. For example, id is a platform created by ANGIN and UNDP to connect investors and enterprises, while also providing entrepreneurs with learning materials and resources for growing their business.

A partnership built on similar values

In Indonesia, we (ANGIN and UNDP) initiated a partnership two years ago when UNDP began exploring the social finance eco-system in Indonesia. We began collaboration by conducting joint research, which identified the disconnect between investors and enterprises as a key challenge. Our partnership developed as we worked together to design an impact fund that would address that disconnect by bringing capital to women-led enterprises that were investment ready but could not access capital to grow.  For ANGIN and UNDP, having aligned values; recognising our complementary competencies; having honest, clear communication and defined roles and accountability have been important to our partnership.

For UNDP, the partnership has opened doors to investors and enterprises. ANGIN has brought access to the Indonesian investor and enterprise ecosystem, expertise in early stage investing and capacity building, resource mobilisation with private sector investors and an efficient, lean startup mentality that is execution-centric and KPI oriented.

For ANGIN, UNDP has played a catalytic role for their growth. The UN brings access to a global community and ecosystem, expertise in SDGs, impact measurement and innovative financing, access to government counterparts, resource mobilisation with donors and concessionary investors, a network and infrastructure in the country, neutrality and the UN brand. Together our partnership has achieved a lot but it has at times been constrained by certain UN policies and these need to change.

Four changes needed to UN policies

UN reform must support partnerships for SDG financing such as ours, which now actually take place in spite of UN policies and procedures. We recommend four changes to UN policies:

  • The UN must be equipped with the appropriate legal and financial policies to engage with investments and recover costs for our engagement.
  • The UN has to build its strong cadre of finance experts and facilitate the dispersion of this expertise across the 193 countries where it works.
  • Due diligence processes need to stop seeing private sector as good or bad but instead scrutinise how the collaboration is creating positive change in the way investments are made.
  • Partnership agreements should reflect collaboration not as a procurement or funding arrangement but an offer to support to each other that is equal and mutually beneficial.

In countries like Indonesia, Armenia and Kenya, the UN and finance sector partners have started exploring investments in SDGs. The financing of the SDGs requires us to learn from and build on these early experiences for a more systematic approach across the countries where the UN works.

 

Dwi Siti Sundari: Co-Founder of D’Harvest

Posted on | by angin

ANGIN Women’s Spotlight series seeks to showcase a diverse array of inspiring women leaders and their stories and experiences in order to shed light on the unique experiences of women in business. We hope that both men and women can gain from these shared experiences, that these stories can inspire change, and that other young girls are motivated to become leaders as well.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Dwi Siti Sundari and I am the co-founder of D’Harvest, along with my husband. My business has been engaged in local snacks for about 3 years in the Tomohon area, in North Sulawesi. We utilize local crops such as goroho bananas that is available only in Sulawesi and develop them into banana chips that have a longer shelf life. We also produce snacks made of sweet potatoes, corn and beans for local souvenirs.

Do you have a plantation, too?

I do not, but there are an abundance of bananas in this region, so I had a thought: if we sell bananas as raw materials, it will have a low value and low shelf life, but if it’s a processed bananas, it has up to 6 months of shelf life. We are mostly housewives, so we work as a collective to process these bananas in our respective kitchen, then we will gather together to do the packaging process. We do this in our leisure time, after we are done taking care of our households.

What was your previous work, and what made you want to start this business?

Previously I worked full time at church while looking to hone my skills. I used to just be in the kitchen as a housewife, baking, and so on. We take orders for small events, as well as larger ones for Christmas or other special events. Then I started to sell my products, but with business development services from the government, I ventured to develop the products, apply for P-IRT (food production licensing), so that my products could be marketed to supermarkets and modern markets.

What kind of challenges did you encounter on your entrepreneurial journey?

We have so many requests (for the products). The ability to fulfill the demand is sometimes lacking because we do not have the proper technology and machinery. Up until now, we only used manual equipment. Someone offered us to supply our products in Maluku and Papua regions, but we were not able to take the chance as we lack labour and machinery inputs,  even after our neighbors came and helped us.

There is high demand, but many of our orders cannot be fulfilled because our equipment remains manual. So, on average we sell 15 or 20 units. It is not a large sum, because we are limited in terms of production and marketing.

Have you tried to take a loan from the bank?

We’ve never before gotten funds from banks because there are many requirements and constraints, and so we have not thought about getting it from there. I don’t think I can afford to qualify; when there is a guarantee we have the money, but it is difficult to gain the necessary permission that sometimes makes it difficult for us.

Besides fundraising, what other needs does your company face?

More on the business development services, especially in technical skills. We want to grow bigger so that we can employ more people, and thus develop newer and bigger food ideas. However, we need knowledge and training — not just capital.

How is the issue of women’s empowerment important to you?

Currently, I listen to a lot of women, including my own employees. If they do not work and earn money, their household incomes are not enough — their husbands are away, working as drivers or manual laborers. The women have to find additional incomes for their children’s school fees. They cannot even afford their own needs if they do not have jobs. On the other hand, they do not qualify for most jobs like clerk jobs or storekeepers due to age restrictions.

It is because of what I see around me that I want to help. I do so by giving knowledge; in addition to cultivation, we provide craft lessons so that even if a woman is still living at home, she can still receive a little salary and be productive.