From January to August 2019, forest fires in Brazil increased by 76% year over year, according to the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research. The raging fires are heightening concerns about deforestation and sustainability in the Brazilian Amazon. What is the “tipping point” beyond which the Amazon’s hydrological cycle will be unable to support rainforest systems? What is the role of Brazil’s cattle industry in this dilemma and how can sustainability be strengthened... read more

The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition estimates that emerging market economies lose in toto nearly $1 trillion—or 5% of GDP—every year to illicit financial activity. Some African countries lose over 30% of their tax revenue to tax avoidance schemes. Without measures to support transparency, corruption threatens the ability of emerging market governments to deliver services and repay sovereign debt. Gary Kalman, Executive Director of the FACT... read more

The IFC Toolkit provides an innovative and flexible framework for the disclosure of environmental/social/governance (ESG) information that can be used by emerging market companies, investors, exchanges, and regulators. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has partnered with the UN “Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative” and provided guidance to exchanges in Kenya, Peru, Nigeria, Georgia, the Philippines, and Kazakhstan. Discussions are also underway in Ethiopia, Rwanda,... read more

This conference call focused on the link between gender and corporate performance. Does having multiple women on a corporate board of directors lead to better decision-making? Is there a link between the number of womenon a board and a company’s performance on gender issues and its talent management regime? Can board diversity and stronger talent management practices improve corporate performance?   MSCI’s Meggin Thwing Eastman presented her key findings on the... read more

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing is becoming mainstream. This event addressed the contribution of ESG factors to investment performance in emerging markets, for both sovereigns and corporates. The three panels addressed questions including: How can investors take advantage of ESG data available from global policy organizations and ESG data providers? What factors correlate most highly with investment performance? What measures can sovereigns undertake to reduce public... read more

The Samarco tailings dam failure, and now Brumadinho, have put in stark relief water-related risks in the mining sector, including the human and environmental tolls that can be associated with ineffective regulation. Dayna Linley-Jones of Sustainalytics lead an insightful discussion on the twin tragedies at Vale, general risks in the mining sector, and Sustainalytics’s ratings methodology for the extractives segment. This conference call addressed questions including: ... read more

This conference call addressed what investors need to know about the detrimental effects of protein production on forests in Brazil. Deforestation is a major environmental concern that poses operational, financial, and reputational risks to investors. Two-thirds of tropical deforestation over the last decade can be attributed to the production of a handful of globally-traded soft commodities, especially livestock farming products. The production of these... read more

This discussion will focus on one of the most central yet overlooked areas of public finance: the importance of a public sector balance sheet in managing public wealth. The October 2018 edition of the Fiscal Monitor, one of the IMF’s flagship publications, argues that public wealth can best be managed through a public sector balance sheet (PSBS) that provides a comprehensive picture of all of the assets and liabilities that a government owns and owes, and broadens the scope of... read more

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing has gone mainstream. This event convenes a panel of buy-side and sell-side analysts to address the contribution of ESG factors to investment performance in emerging markets. The discussion will address questions including: What is the value of ESG data in emerging markets investing? What are some successful ESG integration strategies? What factors correlate most highly with investment performance? How are investors taking advantage of... read more

Did you know that Guatemala and the Dominican Republic rank higher than India, Turkey, and Namibia in terms of budget transparency? And that Brazil’s budget is more transparent than South Korea’s? The International Budget Partnership (IBP) publishes the Open Budget Survey every two years.  Ranking 115 countries across six continents, the survey is the largest comparative, independent assessment of budget transparency, oversight and participation. The Open Budget Index (... read more