ImpactAlpha, Apr. 20 – The old normal: exclusion, externalities and growth at all costs. The next normal: inclusivity, responsibility and shared prosperity. “Inclusion grows the pie,” Ford Foundation’s Darren Walker said at “Next Normal Now,” the first in a series of convenings charting systemic change, hosted by the Global Impact Investing Network (ImpactAlpha is the GIIN’s media partner).
The next normal broadens “the aperture for opportunity,” says Walker, so that more people are “working their way up through the various systems and structures and succeeding.”
Re-imagining capitalism
Growth in the next normal won’t be measured only in dollars, or yen, or euros, or riel, but by “our shared prosperity,” said the GIIN’s Amit Bouri. Impact investment models and structures already provide “glimmers of that re-imagined future,” he says.
Roshni Bandesha says LeapFrog Investments drives economic inclusion by listening to the financial aspirations of low-income customers. Priya Parrish says Impact Engine is investing in employee ownership models to help build wealth among workers. Lasitha Perera of GuarantCo is overcoming misperceptions of risk in emerging markets by listing bonds for projects in Africa and South Asia on the London Stock Exchange.
Indigenous futurism
The old normal gives too little consideration to long-term impacts. “Inherent within Indigenous worldview is a deeper sense of impact, a longer sense of time and a deeper sense of responsibility to ourselves and to our own future,” said Carol Anne Hilton, author of Indigenomics: Taking a Seat at the Economic Table.
Bolivia, a primarily Indigenous country, has since 2010 embedded the rights of Mother Earth in the Constitution to spur international mining companies to adapt to the next normal (hear more from Hilton on the GIIN’s Next Normal podcast).
Climate action is next on the agenda for GIIN’s “Next Normal Now” series, Wednesday, June 16. Stay tuned.
