This year’s annual conference with the theme “Revitalizing Financial Ecosystem for Creating a New Economy” was a milestone, particularly for emerging economies, as the world’s most comprehensive Sustainability Standards for Financial Institutions to make them the partners of their central banks, governments, businesses, and society were unveiled.

The Standards equip the Certified Financial Institutions to profitably address the macro-economic challenges, namely inflation, employment, balance of payment, and financial sector stability while ensuring environmental protection and achievement of climate targets.
As a result, the adoption of the Sustainability Standards has now become imperative for financial institutions, particularly for the Development Finance Institutions (DFIs).

The discussions during this year’s conference demonstrated how the Sustainability-Certified DFIs gain much-needed relevance in their countries. The rigorous certification process takes the national DFIs beyond relevance to make them some of the most critical institutions to create a new sustainable economy.

By becoming a Sustainability-Certified DFI, the institution can, among others, modernize its governance and business models, manage its stakeholders, including the government, more effectively, and deliver innovative financial and non-financial services to the customers.
The Global Sustainable Finance Conference included Karlsruhe Sustainable Finance Awards 2023 during which ADFIAP members also received recognitions.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), which is an apex institution in India, was conferred the Certificate of Merit for its success in Tribal Development Fund (TDF) Project for integrated development of the indigenous and marginalized tribal households.

In addition, Mr. Rolando Victoria, President and CEO of ASKI Group of Companies in the Philippines was also conferred the Certificate of Merit for demonstrating proven commitment to sustainability and energetically leading the implementation of sustainability standards in his organization.

Fiji Development Bank has also conferred a Certificate of Merit in the category of “Outstanding Sustainable Project Financing”. FDB was unable to send a delegation to the conference.