Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an ambitious plan of action defining sustainable development priorities at a global level to 2030, with the aim of eradicating poverty and promoting decent lives with opportunities for all.
There are 17 goals and 169 universal targets that are inter-connected, applicable to all nations and peoples, and that represent a call to action for governments, civil society and the private sector.
These SDGs are included in the United Nations Agenda 2030, which recognizes the role of financial inclusion and microfinance in reducing poverty and in economic and social development. Access to financial services across society, and particularly for women, features in several of the nearly 170 targets.
Since it was set up, BBVA Microfinance Foundation, with its mission of promoting economic and social development, has operated in alignment with these SDGs. In general terms, the Foundation’s activity has an impact, to differing degrees, on 13 of the SDGs.
BBVA Microfinance Foundation, considered by United Nations as an example of good practice
Since April 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Fund (SDGF) has honored BBVAMF for its contribution to SDGs, making it one of the 13 founding member institutions around the world of its Private Sector Advisory Group.
This provides strategic support to the UN so that, in coordination with the private sector, better results can be achieved in sustainable development. A commitment that was renewed for 2017-2019.
Furthermore, in two of the SDGF’s reports on work done in the private sector to achieve the new goals, presented at the headquarters of United Nations in 2015 and 2016, BBVAMF appears as an example of good practice because of its methodology, Productive Finance, and its social measuring.
This alliance, together with the one BBVAMF has with UN Women, promotes development and inclusion for low-income women entrepreneurs in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The links below provide access to the SDG Fund reports where the BBVAMF is cited as an example of good practice:
In July 2016, the United Nations awarded BBVA Microfinance Foundation special consultative status in its Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
BBVAMF can be consulted by United Nations to provide guidance and recommend actions that contribute to sustainable development.
In order to meet the challenges of today’s world and make the planet a better place for future generations, cooperation between governments, civil society, the private sector and citizens is essential. The SDGs provide the Foundation with an excellent route map to help to transform our world, for the benefit of its people, the planet, peace and prosperity.