The role of travelism, while acknowledged as a potentially important weapon against poverty has until recently never really been formally or effectively brought to the policy-making high table (UN General Assembly 2012 a)
UNWTO’s Sustainable Tourism Eliminating Poverty (ST-EP) initiative launched at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Johannesburg Summit, while seeking to both create the linkage of the sector to the MDGs generally and poverty reduction specifically, never met its fund-raising goals despite the initial creation of a Korean-based foundation. The foundation has now been spun back out of UNWTO, which is focusing efforts on ways to access a more equitable portion of official development aid for the sector.
Advantage technology creates a new market infrastructure while providing portfolio management, informational content and the metrics necessary to measure and manage the performances of these types of investments against sustainability and bank ability targets.
This development has been hailed by WEF as an emerging investment approach with the potential to reconcile key shortcomings in traditional financial market.
These markets include but are not limited to: private equity, public securities, limited partnerships, private debt, micro finance and private placements, There is also a vast amount of capital deployed through philanthropic donations that are increasingly interested in triple bottom line (social, environment and economic) assets. This trend has primed the need for a new trading marketplace and set of platform tools that enable broad participation.
A change in US securities legislation will unlock this potential even further, allowing companies to more easily solicit registered investors. In the remote and spectacular corners of Africa, in rural networks across the planet, where villages will increasingly be connected to the global web through Impact WIFI. There will be huge potential for investment and jobs in infrastructure, service education and capacity building that travel and tourism demand generates.
The program will empower communities to take advantage of their new-found connectivity. This will include a community-based approach to green growth development that includes accommodation, education, training and service/quality standards.
At the same time, projects will be routinely assessed and measured for green growth and economic performance, following closely the principles and processes of the UN Global Compact and engaging local and international agencies in the public, private and informal sectors.