Roundtable presentations allow for extended discussion among a small group of 15-20 experts and practitioners on a specific topic in industry, public policy, or of regional concern. These roundtable conversations allow for more granular, deep-dive discussions that may result in a more analytical framework for assessing largescale global problems. These sessions are typically curated by Programming Partners and attended by Members of the Concordia community.
To find out how to attend, please contact membership@concordia.net
Mr. Washburne will offer remarks on the Trump Administration’s proposed creation of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC), as well as several new initiatives and partnerships that OPIC has launched over the last year. Congressman Yoho will speak on his leadership of the bipartisan Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act, which would modernize and enhance OPIC through the authorization of expanded development finance authorities and the consolidation of several agencies and offices within the newly-created IDFC. Other participants at the roundtable event will include additional, senior U.S. government officials, leaders from partner development finance institutions and bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, as well as development finance experts from the foundation, NGO and commercial sectors.
Leaders of the bipartisan, good government, independent, and centrist spaces will join together for a roundtable discussion focused on common objectives, challenges, and a collective roadmap for action as a movement. This conversation brings together a range of voices critical to this effort as they work to foster a less divisive, more productive political climate that prioritizes people over any particular political party.
Confirmed Speakers:
Freedom of travel has become an important financial asset for the HNW individual. For these global citizens, citizenship planning has become an essential component in their overall financial planning process. For the past 20 years, Henley & Partners have been the leaders in the investment migration industry, helping HNW individuals, organization and working closely with entire countries in establishing citizenship programs that benefit entire populations of individuals. We will be hosting a roundtable during Concordia Summit that will outline how acquiring a second citizenship has become an essential lifestyle solution for the HNW individual.
Employment models are evolving. By 2020, half of U.S. workers will be classified as freelancers. However, 40% of freelance workers worry there are not structures in place that will permit them to retire at the same pace as more traditional employees with similar concerns regarding healthcare, unemployment insurance, paid leave, and other ‘”traditional” workers benefits. Globally, there is a call for a robust examination of how our basic social compact—the premise that if we work hard and do the right thing, we should all be able to get ahead—keeps pace with technological revolutions. This roundtable, hosted by Concordia Patron Member Postmates and moderated by Grant Schreiber, editor of Real Leaders, complements a plenary session and explores cross-sector solutions towards stackable and portable benefits to address urgent needs in the future of work.
The United States has joined other nations in supporting calls for religious freedom and expression, particularly for minority populations. Pejorative attitudes toward the faith traditions of minority populations around the world have long been widespread, but the recent upsurge in politicized persecutions has been unprecedented. It is widely recognized that the private sector has significant role to play in addressing this issue and the roundtable explores ways how the private sector can contribute expertise, network, and resources to this effort.
Private roundtable discussion on the rapidly expanding role of impact investing in the financing of the Sustainable Development Goals. The CEO of the Global Innovation Fund (GIF), Alix Zwane, will moderate a discussion on the emergence of public, private and blended investment funds that are marshaling capital to early stage investments and projects across diverse sectors in the developing world, and thus filling critical finance gaps that are not being met by traditional development assistance and development finance programs.
Other participants at the lunch will include senior officials from international donor and development finance institutions, leading philanthropies and commercial investment funds.
Small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in Latin America face multiple barriers that make their access to the financial sector not easy and expensive, and consequently, they fail to perceive benefits such as increased sales, improved productivity, access to new services, among others.
This conversation aims to address, on one hand, the main challenges of multi sectoral coordination in the implementation of new systems or mechanisms offered by the market, and on the other hand, the fundamental role that the State has in order to facilitate inclusion through business formalization and the reduction of fiscal and financial costs.
How to achieve coordination between the private and public sectors for true financial inclusion?
What new practices or trends exist in the market to bring electronic payments to the small shops?
What international practices exist for mass formalization?
According to recent statistics, women account for only 15% of employees in STEM fields and the gender gap is even wider for venture-funded female-led startups. Female founders received only 2.2% of venture funding in 2017 – a startling statistic given that female-founded startups perform just as well or better than their male counterparts. Additionally, only 8% of investing partners at the top 100 venture capital firms are female. C5 Accelerate runs an accelerator program for socially minded tech entrepreneurs. 43% of our alumni have female founders.
OSF and Concordia, will convene CEO activism experts, corporate leaders, and public opinion and communications experts to deliberate on how best to engage the business sector in corporate activism around migration and other issues.
Description to come.
Urban farmers in Lagos. Drones for disaster relief in Fiji. Storytelling to improve care for Alzheimer’s patients. MIT’s Solve initiative identifies and supports these and many other social innovators with the best solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. Join members of our global community, including some of our Solver teams, and fellow cross-sector leaders for an inspiring and interactive session on the issues that matter most to communities around the globe. We’ll discuss existing stories of innovative impact, define which challenges are most salient for 2019, and leave everyone with new perspectives for building a better world.
Facilitator:
OPIC will host a conversation with the IFC and institutional private equity representatives to discuss on the state of gender lens investing from a funds perspective. IFC will present briefly on its research on how gender lens investing can yield financial returns. OPIC will also provide an update on its $1B global “2X” commitment to empower women in emerging markets.
Recent disasters illustrate the ever-growing threat from climate change and other shocks to vulnerable communities around the world. While the global community recognizes the importance of preparedness and adaptation, effective community-level resilience requires local action. This session, developed and hosted in partnership with Americares and Winrock International, will address the need for public, private, civil society, and other actors to work together to help local communities become more resilient and economically empowered.
Organ trafficking is not as often discussed in anti-human trafficking dialogues amongst stakeholders. Yet, given the high demand worldwide for organs, this lucrative form of illicit trade is being conducted by organized criminal groups and often times uses the same crime networks involved in other trafficking crimes and terrorist financing. Innovative public-private partnerships have emerged to address this egregious crime, including those involving the banking and financial sector. This session will examine the crime of organ trafficking and its impact on the private sector, and encourages representatives from the banking, financial, and private sector to attend for their input and expertise.
Potential Speakers:
Innovative financing in Africa is necessary in order to steer and maximize the sustainability of the continent’s economic transformation. Though there is tremendous potential for this transformation, there is increasing complexity in the development finance process as well as a gap in financial access. For instance, small businesses across the continent are facing an approximately $331 billion total deficit in lending. Tying into Concordia’s other Africa-focused programming at this year’s Annual Summit and housed within Concordia’s Innovative Financing Coalition (CIFC), this Roundtable will focus on continental financing difficulties, funding availability, and opportunities for impact, with an emphasis on investing in and mobilizing domestic resources, reducing risk, building economic resilience, and building partnerships across sectors.
Immigrant children and families reaching for America’s borders in search of hope and a better life; this is the story of the United States, not just the story of today. Government-sanctioned family separation, anti-immigrant rhetoric and expanded deportation are more than bad policy, they are increasingly public-health threats. Medical providers, lawyers, civic leaders and social workers – all are at the front lines in communities rich with immigrant families and all are witnessing first-hand the collateral damage that these policies are having.
This Round Table will examine the need for increased medical/legal partnerships and other collaborative services that can address the complex set of needs precipitated by the current policy environment. Please join in this roundtable of moderated discussion by journalist Antonia Hylton, Correspondent and Producer, VICE News Tonight on HBO.
Speakers:
Join the Atlantic Council in Turkey for a launch of the new report Toward long-term solidarity with Syrian refugees? Turkey’s policy response and challenges, September 2018 by Laura Batalla Adam and Juliette Tolay. Located at the forefront of the global refugee crisis, Turkey has welcomed over three and a half million refugees from Syria and elsewhere, making it the world’s largest refugee hosting country. Turkey has invested significantly to respond to refugee needs, providing humanitarian and social assistance, education, health and other services. Still, the rapid influx of refugees has proven to be a challenge both for the refugees themselves and for Turkey. This report outlines Turkey’s response from the advent for the crisis to present day, provides an overview of the current situation of refugees in Turkey today and outlines policy recommendations for the future.
Confirmed Speakers:
As a prominent owner of product tankers in Nigeria, Union Maritime has an active interest in the development of Nigerian seafarers. To this end, we have developed a local crewing agent, Goodwork Marine Services, which sources in excess of 150 local seafarers for the Union Maritime fleet. The Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act 2003 places a requirement that owners of local vessels trading in Nigerian waters operate with a Nigerian crew. Due primarily to the lack of available training facilities, compliance levels are low and widespread waivers are issued by the government. This represents an enormous opportunity cost to the country.
As a key stakeholder in this sector, Union Maritime is keen to engage in the development of training facilities in the region. Union Maritime is hoping that, through this engagement at Concordia, they can engage with parties with relevant experience in education and governance in order to discuss the required steps and challenges associated with the development of educational infrastructure and policy in the region.
How do we accelerate and scale effective collaboration to combat forced labor in global supply chains? This private roundtable will provide a space for leaders from business, government and the NGO community to facilitate detailed debate on the roles, challenges, and gaps in the relationships between each of these stakeholder groups when it comes to tackling complex challenges like forced labor. Participants will pose questions, share perspectives and foster dialogue that will allow each stakeholder to walk away with key actions for their respective sector to more effectively combat forced labor and advance human rights in global supply chains.
In the lead-up to the launch of the Harambe Fund at the British Parliament in November, Harambe is convening entrepreneurs and investors at the center of the evolution of Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem to explore how innovators can catalyze inclusive economic growth and create efficient economies across the African continent.
Harambe is an ecosystem of over 200 young African leaders (Harambeans) which has spawned a series of tech-enabled such as Andela, Yoco and Fibre. Collectively Harambeans have generated over 2000 quality jobs, raised over $300m from Google Ventures, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Ma and in the process established a pan-African network of startups valued at over $1bn. Seeded by Cisco, the Harambe Fund aims to address gaps in Africa’s investment continuum by providing seed capital to young African innovators.
The United States is experiencing a wave of political division, with negative consequences towards our communities. In many ways, riots in Charlottesville have pulled back the curtain and exposed intolerance across the country. Join Sharif Azami, Program Officer at Concordia Patron Member the Fetzer Institute, and Mike Signer, former Mayor of Charlottesville, to learn more about the After Charlottesville Project (ACP) and discuss partnership-based pathways to healing and reconciliation towards a healthy democracy in America.
The thinking around refugee inclusion has radically changed in recent years. There is now widespread agreement that giving refugees access to education and labour markets is essential for them to lead dignified lives. At this exclusive and intimate roundtable event, UNHCR invites you to a discussion with UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, to explore ways of translating the aspirations of businesses into solutions for refugees and for their empowerment through education, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities. The roundtable will be an occasion to discover initiatives undertaken by the private sector that have had a positive impact on the lives of refugees, featuring examples from the work of some of UNHCR’s key private sector partners.
Speakers:
The University of Virginia Darden School’s Institute for Business in Society will host a private roundtable focused on cross-sector partnerships in the supply chain to enable executives from multiple industries to share ideas and experiences in support of improving practice. The roundtable will educate across industries, encourage innovative thinking and discuss how to overcome partnership challenges in the U.S. and abroad. The discussion will provide insight into the expansion of use and impact of these partnerships.
Explore how companies can support working families through internal practices and culture change, creating workplaces that allow everyone to thrive. In collaboration with Nestle, Panorama will host a roundtable discussion for business leaders focusing on how employers can promote best practices, support broader culture changes, and lead the way to stronger policies.
Latin America, like the rest of the world, will require innovative financing to close the anticipated $2.5 trillion funding gap required for the United Nations’ Global 2030 Agenda. Alongside other global goals, Colombia requires an estimated $60 billion to enact its Peace Accord (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). The 2018 Concordia Americas Summit (July 16-17, Bogotá) had a programmatic focus on regional financing challenges through concentrated programming debating financing availability and efficiencies of funding, with a country focus on Colombia. This Roundtable will extend on key points regarding efficiencies in current funding mechanisms, with a focus on investing in human capital, eliminating legal hurdles restricting the establishment of long-term focused contracts, and information sharing across government ministries.
As the length, frequency, and scope of the world’s conflicts increase, it is becoming more difficult to reach affected people in insecure areas with life-saving and life-improving humanitarian assistance. USAID’s Administrator Mark Green and DFID’s Secretary of State Penny Mordaunt will discuss how donors are addressing this challenge by supporting, investing and incentivizing new solutions, and will showcase three finalists from the first round of the Creating Hope in Conflict Humanitarian Grand Challenge who are helping make the delivery of humanitarian assistance in conflict more efficient and effective. Drawing on input from private sector leaders, a moderated conversation will focus on identifying the ways in which the public and private sectors can collaboratively develop and fund more integrated and inclusive solutions and work together to address the barriers that prevent impact and scaled up engagement, particularly in complex emergencies.
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