Thriving Cities Group announced a partnership with the United Nations Habitat program to establish an enterprise marketplace with a goal of accelerating progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for one billion people living in 1,000 cities by 2030.
Cities provide a unique opportunity to enact innovative investment strategies that can quickly reach a large population and provide proven, scalable models for use around the world.
Already, half of the world’s population live in cities, and by 2050, 68 percent of human beings (or 6.6 billion people) will be urban dwellers. This massive shift provides a remarkable opportunity, and Thriving Cities Group and UN-Habitat are stepping up to the challenge of attracting sustainable investment for the good of cities around the world.
This collaboration focuses on connecting motivated investors with a pipeline of certified projects that can generate financial returns while significantly moving the needle on the 17 SDGs, measures of wellbeing identified by the UN over 50 years of research and practice as essential for reducing poverty, improving human lives, and protecting the environment.
As a first step in tackling this complex challenge, Thriving Cities Group is hosting an interdisciplinary taskforce to develop an innovative investment model that blends research and knowledge sharing, data collection and analysis, technological solutions, strategic media, and network building.
Our partnership with UN-Habitat will give us a global opportunity to test our model of investment for the good of cities, through a pilot program involving 110 cities in 15 countries by 2024. This testing period will be critical for refining and adapting the model, before we begin expanding our efforts to the full complement of 1,000 cities across the globe by 2030.