July 13, 2015/MasterCard

The year 2015 is of great importance as the international community in partnership with the private sector and civil society moves from the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) adopted in 2000 to a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designed to create the conditions in which everyone benefits from the massive advances in technology.

MasterCard is joining world leaders from the public, private and philanthropic sectors at the Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this week to speak on several public panels and discuss crucial next steps for financing the SDGs in advance of the United Nations summit later this year.

Specifically, MasterCard will be engaged in the following public events:

• Monday, July 13
  • Walt Macnee, Vice Chairman of MasterCard, will be speaking at “Billions to Trillions: Transforming Development Finance”, an event organized by the World Bank
• Tuesday, July 14
  • Walt will be speaking on Expanding the Frontier, as well as at the International Business Forum on the “Market Innovation” panel and during the Closing Plenary
  • Tara Nathan, Executive Director, International Development at MasterCard will be speaking on a panel hosted by UN Women and the World Bank on “Financing for Gender Equality: Results & Good Practices”
• Wednesday, July 15
  • Walt will be speaking at “Harnessing the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development” where he will share a new commitment on data philanthropy
  • Tara will be speaking at a session organized by the UN Foundation and BNY Melon on “The Business Case for Sustainable Development: A View from the Financial Services Sector”

The Sustainable Development Goals represent the world’s collective best effort to identify and articulate the most critical problems. However, it is clear that the status quo won’t get us there, and existing public funding alone isn’t going to achieve the SDGs.

MasterCard is committed to financing development in a new way – refining an approach with our development partners to use our technology expertise to direct, target and multiply development dollars in a way that increases measureable impact

•  MasterCard has already helped make the financial system more accessible to more than 150 million people previously excluded through 500 programs in more than 50 countries. And we’ve publicly committed to reaching 500 million people previously excluded from the financial system by 2020. Take a look at the digital press kit here.
• The world has changed since the Millennium Development Goals were adopted in 2000. Check out this infographic exploring the world then and now
• The MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth has compiled a helpful post on five twitter feeds to follow and articles to read in advance of #FFD3