Mr. Weihua Ma, The Executive Chairman of CASVI, Attended UNDP SDG Impact Steering Group Fourth Confe

On the evening of May 24th, the UNDP SDG Impact Steering Group (UNDP SDG Impact Steering Group, hereinafter referred to as the “Steering Group”) held its fourth online conference. UN officials such as the UNDP Administrator and Steering Group Chairman Achim Steiner, UNDP China Representative Bai Yating, UNDP Policy and Program Support Bureau Director Xu Haoliang, UNDP Sustainable Development Goals Impact Project Director Fabienne Michau attended the meeting. Mr. Ma Weihua, the executive chairman of CASVI attended the meeting remotely, and Bai Hong, the secretary-general CASVI, accompanied President Ma to join the meeting.

The impact project team of the United Nations Development Program (hereinafter referred to as UNDP) at this meeting reported the latest progress of the current SDG impact projects with the steering group, shared the project’s future strategic goals and work plan, and held in-depth discussion with the steering group on how to achieve the goals. In this meeting, UNDP hopes to gain in-depth feedback from the steering group on the current progress of the SDG Impact Projects and to effectively combine multidimensional resources to carry out the next step.

Mr. Ma highly appreciated the work done by UNDP in product development and expressed ardent expectations for the ‘enterprise version’ of the SDG impact standard to be released in June. Mr. Ma said that after the pandemic, China has gained a deeper understanding of sustainable development and impact investment. The pandemic has aroused Chinese people’s self-reflection, and the Chinese government has begun to actively call for sustainable development in recent years.

At the meeting, Mr. Ma also stated that he would actively promote the implementation of the SDG Impact Standards and related products in China. Consequently, he put forward three suggestions:

1. Integrate the UN standards with the government policies, and positively influence a broader market with these hybrid policies.

2. The SDG impact project should cooperate with Chinese local groups and promote the project through training and other related methods.

3. Strengthen the linkages with universities to influence young entrepreneurs and investors in China, so that future capital flows will concentrate on sustainable development goals.