I for Impact

EN

pdf (1MB)

Download

I for Impact

September 20, 2017

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers a masterplan to create a better world for the people and the planet. It’s scale and ambition, however, requires new development partnerships supported by adequate financial and technical resources. As a response, development practitioners started to explore alternative and complementary innovative instruments to finance the SDGs -one of which is the prospects for increased cooperation and coordination between Islamic finance and impact investing.

To date, however, the academic and development literature has lacked a systematic exploration of this promising collaboration between Islamic finance and impact investing. This present study attempts to fill this gap by developing the first knowledge product to increase awareness on this collaboration.

I for Impact attempts to raise awareness on the compatibility between Islamic finance and impact investing. It reviews recent developments and key factors for growth, pinpoints similarities between the two sectors, and makes policy recommendations for development actors to create the conditions for the two sectors to benefit from each other.

The report is structured as follows:

› Chapters 1 and 2 provide the background to and outline the universe of impact investing;

› Chapters 3 and 4 provide the background to and outline the universe of Islamic finance;

› Chapters 5 and 6 identify and devise a strategy to enhance the areas of overlap between the two.

In Chapters 5 and 6, recommendations are made for development professionals to consider promoting and growing the area of convergence to create dialogue around Islamic finance and impact investing through the Global Islamic Finance and Impact Investing Platform (GIFIIP) – a multistakeholder platform established by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and United Nations Development Programme’s Istanbul International Center for Private Sector and Development (IICPSD) for blending Islamic financing and private sector resources in achieving the SDGs.