Financing Social Development
A.
Global Institutional Financing
global financing for equitable social development
- Integrate social goals and priorities into the policies of global finance institutions, and coordinate progress through annual UN Economic Development Summits.
- Coordinate global institutional financing efforts with national social-development strategies and the UN Sustainable Development Goals to maximize global social impact.
- Develop globally aligned social-impact reporting standards for multilateral finance institutions and global financial markets – to strengthen their social accountability.
- Develop global social-needs criteria with tiered rankings to prioritize concessional lending and financial aid for countries with the most severe social needs.
- Expand targeted direct financing to assist countries with the greatest social needs and emergencies – through grants, emergency funds, and concessional loans offered by UN agencies, multilateral development banks, and global funds.
- Increase participation from under-developed countries in international financial decision-making – by incorporating input and requests from local governments, diverse social groups, and intended recipients of financial aid and loans.
- Reduce systemic bias in global finance institutions that favor large-scale, high-profit projects centrally managed by major corporations and large private-asset funds with substantial collateral – rather than financing smaller-scale, lower-profit, decentralized projects and community-based enterprises with limited collateral.
- Reform credit-rating systems and ease prudential capital-reserve requirements and regulatory risk-weights to expand concessional lending and lower cost barriers for long-term social programs in under-developed countries.
- Expand public credit-risk guarantees provided by international institutions to attract private finance for sustainable social infrastructure in under-developed countries.
- Eliminate IMF debt-related surcharges and increase access to Special Drawing Rights for vulnerable economies with high-priority social needs.
- Restructure sovereign debt and increase debt relief, converting forgiven obligations into national programs providing essential social services.
- Provide advisory support to under-developed countries to improve their fiscal, financial, and monetary systems to build sustainable and socially-responsible economies.
- Measure national economic progress beyond GDP using indicators reflecting human well-being, social development, and equitable access to food, water, healthcare, education, safety, and economic opportunity, along with protected ecosystems and climate responsibility.
- Strengthen international tax cooperation to curb tax avoidance, profit shifting, and illicit financial flows, and redirect recovered revenues toward social and environmental financing.
- Establish a 1% Global Responsibility Tax on the annual profits of large multinational corporations, with revenues distributed through existing UN programs as direct grants and concessional financing for social development, ecological restoration, and climate adaptation.
B.
Government Fiscal Policy
and Public Investment
government spending and tax policy for social goals
- Integrate social priorities into national and local government budgets to reduce poverty and advance universal access to food, water, housing, education, and healthcare.
- Provide direct public funding and concessional lending to support socially-beneficial projects, services, and enterprises.
- Establish national investment funds to offer grants and concessional loans for locally managed and privately run social services.
- Finance regional social-development projects through cross-border public-private investment partnerships, using pooled national funds and partial credit guarantees to attract private capital.
- Measure social and economic progress using indicators beyond GDP – reflecting values such as food and water security, health, education, poverty reduction, social equity, and economic opportunity.
- Implement progressive taxation on excessive private wealth, corporate assets, and extremely high incomes to fund essential social services and reduce wealth inequality.
- Establish minimum-income guarantees, rent control, and cost-of-living assistance for low-income households.
- Expand public employment in essential social services to provide meaningful paid work for the unemployed.
C.
Government Market-Shaping Policies
steering the investment market toward social goals
- Integrate social development goals into the policies of financial regulators and central banks, including standard criteria and rating systems for socially-beneficial investments.
- Embed social-impact disclosure requirements into financial regulations, government procurement rules, public contracting processes, and corporate reporting standards.
- Develop social-impact reporting standards and performance ranking-criteria to guide disclosure practices and strengthen transparency, credibility, and comparability in social investment markets.
- Require large financial institutions – including banks and investment funds – to disclose the share of their portfolios that advance measurable socially-beneficial outcomes.
- Reform financial regulations and credit-allocation rules to ease regulatory risk-weights and short-term valuation biases that disadvantage long-term investments in social projects and community services.
- Expand social projects and services by attracting long-term private capital and reducing collateral barriers in prudential lending – through public-private blended finance partnerships with partial credit-risk guarantees and first-loss capital.
- Establish long-term public social commitments – such as permanent benefit programs, guaranteed service contracts, and sector-focused subsidies – to reduce investor risk and increase both private and public-private investment in social services.
- Create positive incentives (such as subsidies and tax breaks) and negative incentives (such as fines and tax penalties) to guide private enterprises and investment toward socially-beneficial projects and services, and discourage business activities with harmful social impacts.
D.
Private Investment for Social Development
private capital aligned with social goals
- Integrate social-development values into corporate missions, business models, and investment strategies.
- Prioritize long-term social and ecological investment over short-term profit objectives within asset management and institutional investment strategies.
- Encourage private, institutional, and philanthropic investors to finance local public projects and socially-beneficial enterprises that meet community needs, expand employment, and reduce poverty.
- Increase social-impact investment opportunities by expanding private-sector issuance of social-impact bonds and other social investment products.
- Encourage large investment firms to voluntarily disclose their social-impact intentions and performance indicators for major investment products, and support independent evaluation of all social-impact investment products.
- Support shareholder engagement and voting rights to advance social responsibility in corporate governance and long-term business strategy.
- Foster business models that ensure equitable working conditions, fair wages, worker dividends, worker participation in business decisions, and responsibility for the social good and community well-being.
- Promote fair trade and supply chains that uphold social development, human rights, decent wages, ecological sustainability, and climate responsibility.
E.
Local Investment in Social Development
financing local community projects and services
- Integrate local social-development priorities into municipal fiscal planning and annual budget frameworks.
- Involve diverse community groups in fiscal planning and budget decision-making for local social development, with broad public oversight to ensure transparency and accountability.
- Strengthen the delivery of local social services such as food assistance, clean water, sanitation, health services, public safety, shelter, education, and childcare.
- Strengthen local economic self-reliance by expanding community investment in essential infrastructure, job-skills training, business management, sustainable food production, clean energy production, and the sustainable and equitable use of local natural resources.
- Provide public grants, subsidies, tax incentives, and concessional loans to local businesses and community cooperatives that provide needed social services and expand local employment.
- Establish community-development banks and community revolving funds to offer low-interest, no-collateral, easy-term microloans for socially-beneficial startups, community cooperatives, local farms, and low-income homeowners.
- Encourage local banks, credit unions, and private institutional funds to prioritize investment in socially-beneficial local projects, services, and businesses.
- Build inter-city and inter-regional partnerships between local governments and businesses to co-finance mutually beneficial social-development projects.