Tri Hita Karana Forum on Sustainable Development 2022: “Future Knowledge and Blended Finance for Better Business and Better World”

The United in Diversity Foundation and Secretariat of SDSN Southeast Asia held the third Tri Hita Karana Forum on Sustainable Development, themed “Future Knowledge and Blended Finance for Better Business and Better World”, under the auspices of the President of Indonesia alongside the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali.

The two-part Forum consisted of the Tri Hita Karana Blended Finance Forum from 13-14 November and the Tri Hita Karana Future Knowledge Summit from 17-18 November. As the pre-eminent sustainability G20 side event, the Tri Hita Karana Forum works to foster collaboration across the global investment community with private, public, philanthropic, and academic partners to accelerate this leadership agenda. The Tri Hita Karana Blended Finance Forum has catalyzed over $30 billion in SDG-linked projects, platforms, and initiatives focused on the energy transition, forests and natural capital, regenerative agriculture, digitized Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), healthy oceans, including fisheries and coral reef protection, sustainable tourism, resilient cities, women leadership, health and many more. Below are highlights of these events at the THK Forum 2022 and G20.

Indonesia Launches the Global Blended Finance Alliance to Close the SDGs Finance Gap

The government of Indonesia launched the Global Blended Finance Alliance in Bali on 13th November, 2022 with its partners and friends including the Blended Finance Taskforce, the B-Team, GFANZ, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United in Diversity Foundation. 

The launch of the Global Blended Finance Alliance, championed by the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, was witnessed by Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut B. Pandjaitan; Minister for Environment and Forestry, Siti Nurbaya Bakar; Minister of Public Works and Housing, Basuki Hadimuljono; and Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo. It was also witnessed by international and national organizations including the Green Climate Fund, the OECD, Konservasi Indonesia, the Global Steering Group, Systemiq, Pegasus Capital Advisors, ADM Capital, Capcade, PT SMI, BlackRock, the Asian Development Bank, the Khemka Foundation, and others.

The mission of the Alliance is to strengthen and scale the blended finance market by replicating successful blended structures, building capacity and tackling inefficiencies by:

• Developing term sheets for different blended finance structures/mechanisms
• Replicating & scaling blended finance transactions that already work
• Matchmaking between projects and capital providers
• Building a body of practice amongst regional/national DFIs in emerging markets
• Implementing training programmes for public, private & philanthropic stakeholders on how to blend
• Convening blended finance leaders to share learnings and push for innovation and reform

The Global Blended Finance Alliance will be working with partners and friends to define its impact targets and strategy which will be announced at the World Bank / IMF Meetings in 2023.

“We are facing an existential crisis which requires huge amounts of capital. That capital exists. The one thing required to unlock it is blended finance. For that reason, the Tri Hita Karana is the single most important meeting on climate in the last 30 years”. - Uday Khemka, Vice Chairman of the SUN Group

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs giving his special remarks on “Financing Our Common Future: Greening G20”:

“We are moving, we’re just not moving fast enough. As the world’s leaders meet at G20 this week, the aim should be to accelerate: putting climate action and climate finance at the heart of the agenda – not because it sounds nice at some moral level – but because it is the economic growth story of this decade and the decades to come. This is why the new Global Blended Finance Alliance is so important – it builds capacity and ensures information can flow to reduce the transaction costs of financing the SDGs and ultimately go faster. We don’t have time to lose.” - Paul Polman, business leader, co-author of Net Positive and Tri Hita Karana Forum Steering Committee 

“I congratulate Indonesia and the THK for promoting the awareness of blended finance to be further adopted by developing countries. We believe that this is crucial to turn our joint ambition into action. We believe that this is crucial, really to leverage billions to trillions” -Andreas Schaal, Director of Global Relations, OECD

Newly Launched UID Bali Campus and TSEA Center

The United in Diversity (UID) Bali Campus and Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center was officially launched at Kura Kura Bali, Denpasar. A collaboration between UID and Tsinghua University, this Center aims to be a global class learning hub which will accommodate all stakeholders to learn, build network and capacity, and create innovative solutions that will directly contribute to the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the region.

In his opening remarks, Vice President of Tsinghua University, Wang Hongwei, stated, “With the Center as an exchange platform, Tsinghua and UID have joined hands with partners from Southeast Asia and beyond in developing talent training programs, academic exchange and cooperation, and keeping our commitments to the UN SDGs, the Global Development Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping, and the New Era Bali Kerthi Economic Roadmap launched by President Joko Widodo.”

“The vision of the UID Bali Campusis to become the learning hub for all stakeholders who inspire to create the best solutions to support the achievement of SDGs by including the awareness of harmonizing human, nature, and spirituality. UID will have world-class and high technology facilities, such as a technology incubator, green spaces, and will become a smart campus.” -Tantowi Yahya, President United in Diversity and Executive Lead THK Forum 2022.

Tri Hita Karana Future Knowledge Summit Galvanizes Think Tanks and Innovators to Formulate Innovations and Visions For the Best Future

As a follow up to the Tri Hita Karana Forum Blended Finance, the Tri Hita Karana Future Knowledge Summit kicked off on November 17th 2022 as a the two-day Summit held to foster collaboration and exchange between developing and developed countries around technological innovations, knowledge transfer, and transformative capital to support the scale of investment needed from private sectors to deliver the SDGs.

The Summit gathered global and local policy-makers, corporates, technical innovator communities, finance institutions, philanthropy, NGOs, think tanks, academia, and other key actors in the innovation ecosystem to ensure global action to achieve net zero aligned growth pathways that are socially, environmentally, and economically inclusive.

Topics of discussion in the Summit included decarbonization innovation, digital technology and transformation, medical technology innovation, artificial intelligence of data government, and fostering micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and entrepreneurship. Participants were also given the opportunity to experience a sensing journey inspired by traditional Balinese philosophy of ‘Tri Hita Karana’ through culture, history, generative farming, innovative education, and arts.

During the Roundtable Dialogue with the World University Leaders session, it was agreed that accelerating universities' contribution is crucial to the achievement of SDGs.

“If we are serious about net zero commitment, we should be able to provide qualified data. Our findings can better assess the promise and potential decarbonisation innovation through verifiable, real-time carbon accounting and auditing.”- Prof. Karthik Ramanna, University of Oxford.

The Summit also presented the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of THK Knowledge Prize Alliance which brings together six partners to promote the awareness-based technology innovation and entrepreneurship through an incentive power. It will be a platform to exchange and foster greater connection among innovators, inventors, researchers and practitioners to share best practices and establish capacity building programs.

THK Future Knowledge Prize Alliance also aims to foster Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPrize Foundation declared,” We need to have trust and knowledge system to support our entrepreneurs. We also need to teach our young generation about technology and entrepreneurship. It is a journey of passion which needs constant support, emotionally, and building blocks to start their entrepreneurship up and running.”