MANILA – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a new market intelligence tool to help foreign and domestic businesses map investment opportunity areas (IOAs) across the Philippines.
The Philippines’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Investor Map highlights 12 investment IOAs across the country, all aligned with the SDG, including climate finance initiatives and nature-based solutions.
Each IOA provides comprehensive information, including the specific development needs it addresses, anticipated developmental impacts, supportive conditions, potential impact risks, and illustrative case studies.
“As interest grows among private sector actors to align investment activity with the SDGs, there is a demonstrated call for unifying standards, tools, and services that can be relied upon by investors to support a process of targeting, measuring, and achieving development outcomes,” UNDP Philippines Resident Representative Dr. Selva Ramachandran said during the launch in Makati on March 19.
“This is the reason why the UNDP, through its SDG Impact Team, in partnership with the Centre for Impact Investing and Practices, initiated the development of the SDG Investor Maps,” he added.
The UNDP Philippines produced the map in partnership with the SDG Impact and the Center for Impact Investing and Practices (CIIP), and was supported by the recently concluded UN Joint Programme on Integrated National Financing Framework (JP-INFF).
NEDA Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon, who was also present at the launch, highlighted Manila’s strides in SDG financing in the country.
“We made sure that the SDGs are mainstreamed in the Philippine Development Plan. Taking off from the lessons from the pandemic, we have seen that we need to effect an economic and social transformation so that we can have a prosperous and inclusive society,” she said.
“We are championing the SDGs because we know that if we achieve the SDGs in 2023, it gives us better chances of achieving our Ambisyon2040,” she added.
The Philippine’s 12 IOAs may be accessed through the global platform -- https://sdginvestorplatform.undp.org/
The platform currently houses 613 IOAs from various countries around the world and provides private sector investors with access to country level market intelligence, including on-the-ground insights on local investment landscape and investor connections.
The Philippines’ SDG Investor Map was prepared through close collaboration with the government and the private sector, the UNDP Philippines said. (PNA)
