PLY: News from Australia as the Commonwealth seeks to follow nationally, New South Wales pioneering approach at state level leads today’s three crunchy stories.
Meanwhile, it has to be said in a world of political pygmies and generally dismal leadership of the current generation, I and the rest of the Social Impact Bond News team salute Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on becoming the longest serving monarch and of course her great success in melding the British Commonwealth during her reign. Hers has been a model for public service and we salute her latest milestone today, surpassing the reign of Queen Victoria. Long may she reign over the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth.
Australia – Scott Morrison Keen To Follow NSW Into Social Impact Bonds (subscription)
Australian Financial Review
Social impact bonds deliver better value for taxpayers, says Social Services Minister, Scott Morrison.
$30 Million Committed To Australian Impact Investment
Ellie Cooper – Pro Bono Australia
Superannuation fund HESTA has committed $30 million to create an impact investment fund managed by Social Ventures Australia, which is said to be the single largest investment of its kind in Australia to date.
HESTA’s CEO, Robert Fowler said the fund chose to partner with SVA for their previous success in impact investing.
SVA and HESTA designed the dedicated fund, the Social Impact Investment Trust, to allow HESTA to make direct and indirect investments in a range of projects.
“It’s a pool of money we will use for projects that we will identify in the future, but we expect most of it will go into social impact bonds, social and affordable housing transactions and social enterprises,” Koczkar said.
“The social impact bonds are covering a range of things at the moment from homelessness to out of home care, recidivism, reducing offending rates, as well as some chronic health and mental health issues.”
Koczkar said “it could be thousands of people who are supported by this capital” given the achievements of previous SVA projects with less financial support.
The $7 million Newpin social benefit bond has reunited 66 children with their parents over its first two years while delivering strong returns to investors.
How Development Impact Bonds Can Incentivize Results: A Proposal From Two Young Innovators
Fin4Dev
The creation of the post-2015 development agenda provides an unparalleled opportunity not only to create innovative change, but also to engage a wider set of creative minds across the globe to craft a vision for the future of development.
This past spring, we had the pleasure of participating in the Ideas for Action Competition—a collaboration between the World Bank and the Wharton School that sought to engage young professionals in the development of innovative tools to finance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We were honored to be selected as one of the six finalist teams out of over 300 entries, enabling us to present our submission at the World Bank this past May. The connections made and resources provided by this competition have allowed us to continue to work toward refining our idea for peer review, with the eventual goal of creating a pilot program for implementation.
Our proposed tool, an iteration of development impact bonds (DIBs), was applied as a case study for funding access to clean cook stoves in middle-income countries due to cook stoves’ relevance to an array of development issues targeted by the SDGs.