The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and the UNEP Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System are to hold a two-day convening of key academics at CIGI’s headquarters in Waterloo, Canada, starting on the evening of December 1st and ending in the early afternoon on December 3rd, 2014.
The context of the Convening is summed up by the aims of the Inquiry as being to identify “…policy options that would deliver a step change in the financial system’s effectiveness in mobilising capital towards a green and inclusive economy”. The context is one where there is widespread concern that the financial system is not fit for its public purpose of meeting the needs of the long-term health of the real economy. Exemplary, market-led practice can and does help, but is not ensuring an adequate and timely alignment with these needs.
The Convening is intended to address key pertinent theoretical and empirical questions that support the broader applied, policy research agenda concerning the contours of a sustainable financial system. In addressing these questions, the Convening seeks to establish the basis for a research agenda going forward, some of which can be taken up by the hosts and participants, but more importantly can inform the work of many researchers and research institutes, and also the framing of research financing. In the shorter term, the Convening will feed directly into the deliberations and approach of the Inquiry, which will produce a major report on the topic in the second half of 2015.