Expected Results

It is estimated that the annual corporate social responsibility investments in Turkey surpass 100 million USD. In addition, Turkish companies started adopting inclusive business models, which would account to above 1 billion USD a year. The Project at hand will establish a facility through the platform, which will help sectors and companies access necessary research and data, and facilitated stakeholder dialogues, to realize their social and environmental investments in the most meaningful and effective way through partnerships. Hence, the current private sector financing for SDGs will be guided, managed and operated as a result of this Project, with a potential to mobilize over 100 million USD every year.

In addition, the Platform will facilitate the dialogues between the international SDG focused investors/funds and Turkish companies. UNDP’s new initiative called SDG Impact, launched at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly in New York, aims to work with the private sector on how best to invest in enterprises and markets in ways that help achieve the SDGs, an ambitious blueprint for a world without poverty or inequality. The initiative aims to help channel private investment and capital to meet the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The SDG Impact initiative was built on the findings of the report: “Better Business, Better World”. According to the report, the SDGs offer companies a tremendous new growth strategy that will help build trust with society and broad-based prosperity. The report, by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, also stated that pursuing the SDGs would open up markets in new commercial opportunities. The report highlights that achieving the SDGs will create $12 trillion of new market opportunities in food and agriculture, cities, energy and materials, and health and well-being, in addition to creating 380 million jobs, 90 percent of which would be in developing countries. B4SDGs will be the main venue, through SDG Impact, to provide investors and businesses with much-needed country-level data and SDG investment roadmaps.

Turkish private sector is one of the most advanced in the region with heavy investments, jobs creation, tax revenues and international trade within the region. The Business for SDGs Platform will help UNDP develop a new model and a strategic approach and a clear agenda to maximize the contributions of the private sector to the SDGs. The platform-based model has the potential for replication in other countries, with the help of Turkish businesses with operations in those regions. The management model, which will provide the mechanisms and strategy for working with the private sector to achieve SDGs will be replicable in other countries. The lessons learned will be shared widely.

The B4SDG will sustain its operations under the roof of two prominent private sector voluntary bodies of Turkey, namely TURKONFED and TUSIAD and continue to support the Government, UN and other development actors as a one stop policy and implementation point to conduct research, develop policies and coordinate and facilitate the contributions of the private sector to SDGs. The CO will play the role of know-how provider on SDGs, and facilitator of the dialogues between the businesses and the Government for materializing partnerships, and manage the funds and contracts through a Direct Implementation Modality.

B4SDG will strengthen Government’s efforts to promote public-private sector partnership for the achievement of SDGs. This will be achieved through promotion of transparency and accountability with an inclusive environment and continuous knowledge exchange between private sector and Government. Besides, it is expected that impactful investment will be supported through Government policies and incentives and private sector in human capital will be invested through development goals. This would also improve the external financing facility.

Platform mechanisms will be created for businesses put sustainable development and inclusiveness at their center from the very outset and reflect this as a priority in all possible stages of the value chain. At this point, strong commitment and ownership of the senior managements and business leaders, which are facilitated with the involvement of the TUSIAD AND TURKONFED are key for success of this mechanism. To this end, Championship roles will be defined for active leadership of business people. Investments in and integration of the SDGs and its targets in business processes and in the value chain will be achieved through collaborative efforts. Platform based partnership strategy for development impact will be developed and the impact will be measured regularly. Innovative finance and investment methods will also be examined especially in cooperation with the stakeholders and long-term policies and projections are made for returns when targeting the SDGs.

 

Based on the above, the Project aims to achieve the following results:

 

Result 1. Operationalize the Business for Goals Platform

 

  1. Form the governance structures of the Platform with high level representation of the businesses in Turkey and UNDP. TURKONFED and TUSIAD will appoint 3+3 business leaders each with backgrounds on a proven record of successful impactful business operations and consciousness on sustainable development. The representatives will act as the executive board members of the Platform, provide guidance and direction to the Platform’s work and act as outspoken leaders in the initiative as required. Gender equality will be perceived in the formation of the executive board. The Terms of Reference for the Executive Board is enclosed to this Document.
  2. A President of the Platform will be appointed, who will have a solid background on both sustainable development and private sector fields. The President will not only lead the executive board, but also have the highest level representative capacity of the private sector on issues that matter to SDGs and will represent the private sector’s opinion at SDGs related high level forum, including of the UN’s.
  3. A Director/Project Manager and a team will be established to run the day-to-day operations within the framework laid down by the Board and the President, to ensure that the project produces the results specified in the project document.

 

Result 2 Enhance the role of the private sector in Turkey in SDGs

  1. A matrix-based tool for SDGs – private sector correlation assessment with the SDGs will be developed in cooperation with development experts, private sector and its stakeholders.
  2. Sector[1] based research will be conducted to analyze the issues within the sectors and understand the roles that value chains play to produce efficiency and effectiveness with environmental stewardship, social responsibility and economic prosperity. The research will be conducted with a vision to assess the leveraged role of the private sector in Turkey by addressing the development challenges and needs, within the framework of SDGs and national development plans as linked with other key initiatives, such as SDG Impact and SDG Accelerator initiatives. Future markets/ products in light of the SDGs implementation will be looked into and country mapping exercises will be conducted to match the investors with businesses. The country-level studies will formulate policy recommendations and strategy frameworks for public and private sectors by looking into correlation matrix relations between the competitiveness and total factor productivity, and 17 Goals. Sampling for correlation matrix will be generated among the TUSIAD and TURKONFED members.
  3. Micro, small, medium and large size companies will be supported to understand company typologies and correlation matrixes between core business operations and 17 Goals, as prioritized by the Board, in accordance with the country context. The Executive Board will identify key entry areas for SDGs integration and revisit the prioritized areas every year with a consideration to make the strategy relevant to context. Suggested areas for the first year are SMEs empowerment to be launched in partnership with 22 banks in Turkey and Visa, and disaster and emergency resilience within the context of Connecting Business initiative. Available tools such as SDG Compass[2] will be localized and new tools will be developed for effective use of companies in Turkey for the development of correlation matrixes. Companies will be encouraged to align their corporate strategies with the SDGs and maximize their contributions to the SDGs and local development challenges by applying those tools and methodologies for measuring and managing contributions. Direct support will be provided to the companies by the Project on demand basis.
  4. Dialogues will be conducted with private sector and their stakeholders to maximize the efficiency in private sector’s contributions to the SDGs and local development challenges through a coordinated effort. The engagement of the private sector will be increased and partnership strategies will be developed and presented to the private sector for their active contribution to address the issues. Technology based solutions will also be explored,by benefiting from the existing working level structures of TUSIAD, such as the STEM, Information and Communication Technologies and Industry 4.0 Working Groups.

[1]The sectors to focus on will be identified every year by the Executive Board of the Business for SDGs Platform depending on the country’s imminent development challenges and the most current national development plans, as linked with the SDGs.

[2]The SDG Compass, jointly developed by the Global Reporting Initiative, the UN Global Compact and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, provides guidance for companies on how they can align their strategies as well as measure and manage their contribution to the realization of the SDGs.

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