In November 2022, members of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) met in Baku, Azerbaijan, for their 14th Annual Meeting, themed Mobilising Capital for Change.
Over three days of private conversations, sovereign wealth funds and a select number of IFSWF partners and invited experts discussed three main themes:
- Today's challenging investment environment and how they needed to prepare, partner and perform to succeed in meeting their objectives
- Stakeholder capitalism and long-term investing with a focus on the need to assess environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks more holistically and for asset owners to take a role in standard setting and oversight.
- The importance of sovereign development, or strategic investment, funds in driving additional benefit to the broader economy and civil society.
We have worked with Professor Patrick Schena from Fletcher, the graduate school of global affairs at Tufts University and Dr Adam Dixon from Maastricht University to put together a summary of our discussions at the annual meeting to provide insight into the most pressing issues facing sovereign wealth funds.