Financing for SDGs solutions: the role of the UN, MDBs, Sovereign Wealth Funds and Development Partners

Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, Gabriela Ramos' agenda includes the achievement of social inclusion and gender equality, advancing youth development; promotion of values through sports; anti-racism and antidiscriminatory agenda and ethics of artificial intelligence. Prior to this position, Ms. Ramos served as the Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20/G7/APEC in the OECD, contributing to the global agenda as well as leading the OECD's New Approaches to Economic Challenges, Inclusive Growth Initiative, Gender Strategy and the work on well-being and children. In 2019, she launched the Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG) platform, bringing together 40 major multinational companies committed to reducing inequalities. Previously, she was Director of the OECD Office in Mexico and Latin America and a member of the Mexican foreign service.

Akihiko (Aki) Nishio oversees strategic mobilization of Bank resources, including the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), as well as a diverse trust fund portfolio. Mr. Nishio focuses on furthering IDA’s innovation: leveraging its equity by blending donor contributions with internal resources and funds raised through debt markets, scaling up engagement in fragile countries, and finding new ways to promote private sector development. In 2021, Mr. Nishio led the historic early IDA20 replenishment where development partners agreed to a record package of $93 billion. He also led the successful IDA19 replenishment in 2019 during which $82 billion was committed to the world’s poorest countries.

Mr. Nishio has 30 years of experience in the World Bank combining managerial leadership, technical knowledge, operational experience, and a track record of collaboration with development partners.

Since joining the Bank as a Young Professional in 1988, Mr. Nishio has held diverse positions across the institution. Before assuming his current position, he was acting Vice President of Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions (EFI), while serving as EFI’s Director for Strategy and Operations. Prior to this position, he was Director of the IDA Department, Director for Strategy and Operations for the South Asia Region, Director of Operations of the World Bank Institute, Country Program Coordinator for China, and an economist for Indonesia in the rural development sector unit. Before joining the World Bank, Mr. Nishio worked for the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (currently the Japan International Cooperation Agency).

A Japanese national from Yokohama, Mr. Nishio is a British Council scholar, with an M. Phil. in development from Cambridge University, a B.A. in economics from Hitotsubashi University in Japan, and an undergraduate diploma from the Université Catholique de l’Ouest in Angers, France.

Markus Berndt is the Acting Managing Director of the EIB’s new branch for external activity, EIB Global, heading its operations. Prior to taking up his current position, Mr Berndt was leading the EIB’s Group Strategy Department and held managerial positions in the Operations Directorate and the Economics Department.

Before joining the EIB in 2008 as a financial sector expert for operations outside the EU, Mr Berndt held positions at the International Monetary Fund, at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and at the Corporate Finance and Strategy Practice of McKinsey and Company.

Mr Berndt acquired his PhD in Economics in 2000 as stipendiary of the International Doctorate Programme in Law and Economics by the Max-Planck Institute and the University of Hamburg, during which he spent time as an invited research fellow at Harvard University.

Matias Bendersky, a citizen of Argentina, is the Manager of the Office of Outreach and Partnerships as of March 16, 2023.  In his role, he is responsible for strengthening the Bank’s dialogue and alliances with other constituencies of the development community, including trust fund donors, co-financing counterparties, foundations, academia, and the private sector to collaborate in key initiatives for the economic, sustainable, and inclusive growth of the Latin American and the Caribbean region. In March 2020 Matias was appointed as the Inter-American Development Bank Representative in Uruguay.  In this capacity, he managed the Bank’s programming and technical dialogue with the government of Uruguay, overseeing the portfolio of both private and public sector operations.  Previously he served as IDB Chief of the Resource Mobilization Division, where he was responsible for identifying, developing, and expanding the mobilization of resources and strategic alliances between the IDB Group and partners from the public and private sectors.  

Prior to entering the IDB in 2007, he worked for the World Bank in several sovereign guaranteed operations, including countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Previously, he worked as a corporate and transactional attorney in law firms in Buenos Aires and Washington, D.C.  Matías Bendersky has a Law degree from the University of Buenos Aires and a joint Master's degree from the Kellogg School of Management and Law School of Northwestern University in Chicago.

Constance is responsible for Corporate Engagement, Sustainable Finance, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Strategic Marketing & Communication within CIB. As sustainability is at the core of BNP Paribas’s strategy, CIB Company Engagement’s mission is to work closely with all of CIB business lines and functions in order to accelerate its sustainable finance activities, as well as partnering with Human Resources to promote diversity and inclusion, drivers of engagement within the company.

Additionally, in her role as Chief Sustainability Officer for Global Markets, a world leader in Sustainable finance, Constance is in charge of leading the change of our markets activities, and fostering change at our clients and partners, incorporating ESG in analysis, modelling and decision making.

Since joining BNP Paribas in 2001, Constance has held various management positions in Transformation, Digital, Analytics, AI and Sustainable Development.

Constance holds an MBA in Finance from HEC Paris business school and certifications from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. She is the author of “Technology, threat or lever of change?” published in l’Annale des Mines in 2018.