Welcoming Private Stakeholders

The World Development Foundation Creates a new Conference Series at UN Headquarters, Aug, 2017

WDF continues to present a new series of conferences featuring ways to work together with private investors and corporations. Often omitted from UN policy discussions for fear that the private sector will inevitably control the discussion, WDF has sought to work on strengthening the institution of the UN (SDG 16) in order to affect meaningful public-private partnerships that permit private and corporate stakeholders to join others, leading to march toward new, sustainable development throughout the world.

Public Private Partnerships

Member State Initiatives to Support the SDGs invite in private investors and companies willing to prosper by following SDG guidelines.

Government officials, corporate leaders, NGOs and investors from around the world gathered at the United Nations on 23 May 2017 to engage in a focused dialogue on Public-Private Partnerships (PPP): Member State Initiatives to Ensure the Success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) hosted by the Permanent Mission of Suriname, in cooperation with the World Development Foundation. This began a new series of conferences dedicated to SDG 16 and 17: strong institutions ought to pursue public private partnerships for global development.

“Good, far-reaching policies earning sincere endorsement, will not grow nor endure without private investment” said Henry Mac Donald, Permanent Representative of Suriname to the United Nations, to open the conference. Ambassador Mac Donald went on to further explain that private sector investors have been successfully able to obtain financial returns on their bottom lines while at the same time benefitting the bottom half of the world as they struggle for sustainability. The session was inaugurated by the President of the General Assembly, Peter Thomson, followed by an in depth speech on the topic by the Principal Representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for the Caribbean and Latin America.