Were you able to accomplish your goals at the forum?

Yes. It was a success! IIC’s agenda at the GIIN forum was to enable a corridor for India-focused asset owners and asset managers. To give investors a room to share their strategies for India, and provide the Indian asset managers with the opportunity to showcase innovation through their prism. At IIC’s India Room’s session, which was extremely interactive, we enabled the delegates to not just acquaint the fellow attendees with their work but showcase the intersection of India impact investing with the G20 summit. We were joined by 60 delegates, including 21 General Partners (GPs) which comprised 15 members of the Impact Investors Council (IIC) and 19 influential Limited Partner organizations from 12 countries.

In general, what do you think is the role of global organizations such as GIIN?

Global organizations like GIIN, or the Global Steering Group (GSG) play the role of a ‘motherboard’ for the global impact investing community. They are designed to bring global stakeholders under one roof. By creating National Advisory Boards, leadership summits and hosting annual conferences, these organizations are trying to address internal regulations and legal issues in the countries, and are doing their best to improve the need of the hour – to act as an intermediary, enable equal access to the information, measure impact, increase pools of capital and provide access to reliable data, which is globally the biggest challenge.

In September this year, India hosted another global event – the eighteenth summit of G20 Heads of State. Has it had an impact on the local impact investment market?

Absolutely! The event was actively covered by the international media. This was the first time India hosted the G20 summit and proudly covered around 200 meetings in more than 50 cities ahead of the G20 summit day.

To answer your question, the reason to celebrate for the impact community was the biggest takeaway of the declaration. All 83 paragraphs of the declaration were passed unanimously with a 100 percent consensus along with China and Russia in agreement.

Its main priorities were global political, economic and environmental challenges: the need for the fragile global economy to remain flexible and responsive to world events. It included deep concern around peace and prosperity for the planet, a strong sustainable and balanced inclusive growth, emphasizing India’s commitment to addressing both the global problems of the South and the problems of vulnerable groups within the country.

In combination, it definitely became a sensation. And this is, among other things, the recognition of the role of impact investment as an effective tool for solving socio-economic problems and achieving sustainable development goals. After all, SDGs are directly dependent on impact investment: if you want to close a socio-economic gap, you fill it with the help of impact investors.

Definitely! Having been a part of an industry body catering to 1/5th of the global population, for almost 10 years, one has realized the immense importance, need and demand for such convenings, globally!