Sustainable Development Section 29 Week 3 Digest

UNGS 1201 Section 29 Third Class Summary

السَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog and here is my recent post related to the week 3 digest of the Sustainable Development Section 29. However, the class last Friday was conducted asynchronously where the students had to watch the live Webinar via Zoom platform which was attended by a lot of people from the whole country. The Webinar was a 71st Islamic Banking and Finance Discussion series where this was not the first discussion organized. The thing that gratified and delighted the IIUM family was the Webinar had been facilitated by the IIUM moderator. He was Assistant Professor Syed Marwan, the IIUM lecturer of the Institute of Islamic Banking and Finance. Meanwhile, our honored and respected guest who would share the talk in the Webinar was Mr. Ahmad Hafiz Abdul Aziz, the Financial Sector Specialist of The World Bank Group. The Webinar was also joined by our UNGS 1201 lecturer, Dr. Razinah. 

Without further delay, I would like to share my experience when I was there and the flow of the Webinar on past Friday. So, the topic of the discussion on that day was pertaining to The Recovery of Green Financing And The Roles of Islamic Finance. A few minutes after the welcoming and greeting session, the moderator started to deliver the question which was, 'What roles can green financing and Islamic finance ensure sustainability and bring recovery?'. The floor was then given to Mr. Hafiz, the sharer. He initially divided his talk into three sequentially which were the impacts of Covid-19, rebooting the economy: Green and Sustainable Recovering and Green and Sustainable Recovering: Roles of Islamic Finance.

First and foremost, the speaker told us about the impact of Covid-19. The first impact is the existence of the new poor. The pandemic will affect the poor and vulnerable people in terms of their economy. Based on the statistics provided, there are millions of people facing poverty out there, especially those who are engaged in the service sectors like construction and manufacturing. The second impact is the accelerated economic downturn. The Covid-19 recession has seen the fastest and steepest downgrades in consensus growth projections among all global recessions since 1990. The alleviate pressure caused an enormous impact on economic growth. The third impact is relieving the debt burden. The debt service to official bilateral creditors will impose a heavy burden for years to come. The fourth is the impact on businesses and jobs. It caused the firms to be more likely to reduce the workers or the wages of the workers. Many firms retain staff hoping to keep them on the board. Meanwhile, 75% of the firms increased the use of technologies to adapt to the crisis. The fifth impact is the high cost of health care. Millions of people are under the pressure of extreme poverty by health spending. The sixth impact is the clearing of the classrooms where at least 1.5 billion students were out of school at the peak of the pandemic. The other impacts include Internet inequalities, extreme hunger, fragility, conflict and violence at home and the seizing of sustainability opportunity.

After that, Mr. Hafiz mentioned the next subtopic which is, 'Rebooting the Economy: Green and Sustainable recovering'. Here, one of his explanations is about the bodies who are responsible for rebooting the economy. They are the policy makers (United Nation, Paris Agreement, APEC & Responsible Business), financial institutions (Credit Unions & Central Banks), financial regulators (NGFS, ACMF, SBN, EV Taxonomy, BNM & SC), consumers' demand (Millennials) and investors (United Nations & Principle for Responsible Investment)

The speaker also shared 8 types of Sukuk as the roles of Islamic Finance for Green and Sustainable Recovery.

8 Types of Sukuk as the Roles of Islamic Finance

Other than that, he also listed the sustainable financial products in the market such as; Green loans, Social loans, Green bonds, Social bonds, Blue bonds, Transition bonds, Sustainable bonds, Sustainability-linked bonds, Gender bonds and other related bonds. 

Finally, there was a question and answer session where the participants asked very interesting questions to the speaker. Some related questions are: how many investors know how to invest in green financing? What is the difference between the SRI Sukuk and Green Sukuk? What is the World Bank definition of 'poverty'? The most catchy question is how to attract non-Muslims to invest in Sukuk? All of these questions have been answered by Mr. Hafiz clearly while connecting and developing the ideas together with Dr. Marwan and the audiences to form the relevant and wise answers.

 So, that's all for the UNGS 1201 week 3 digest from me. Thank you for reading!