Lecture World Investment Forum: Community Currency Programmes

How can community currency programs serve as a tool for poverty alleviation and sustainable development? DRIFT-researcher Daan Sillen elaborates on this topic with a lecture on the UNCTAD World Investment Forum 2018.

The UNCTAD World Investment Forum 2018 is a pre-eminent global platform for investment and development. The Forum devises strategies and solutions for global investment and development challenges. It facilitates multi-stakeholder collective action to stimulate investment in development. The Forum gathers more than 4,000 investment stakeholders from 160 countries and offers a unique opportunity to influence investment-related policymaking, shape the global investment environment, and to network with global leaders in business and politics.

As part of the program, sessions are organized on blockchain technologies and the impact these technologies may have on development-oriented investment, not only by revolutionizing global payment systems but also through improvements to access to finance, supply chain management, digital identities or land registries (through decentralized applications). This impact goes beyond traditional financial services and business processes and extends to other industries important for the SDGs, such as agriculture, healthcare and transportation.

Organized with the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS), University of Cumbria, the event, taking place on October 24, will seek to develop ideas on how to increase the positive impact and minimize the negative effects of blockchain technologies on investment for development. In addition, UNRISD is co-hosting a Researcher Symposium at October 25, looking at the broader implications for a sustainable society of a host of different monetary innovations including monetary decentralization via digital or physical currencies, and currencies using blockchain or cryptography for security. Post-doctoral, doctoral, and masters researchers will discuss legal, sociological, developmental, political, anthropological, management and economics perspectives. DRIFT-researcher Daan Sillen will contribute to the event with a lecture of his research on community currency programmes as a tool for poverty alleviation and sustainable development in Mombasa and Nairobi counties (Kenya).

Do you want to know more about the event? Visit the website.