While the globalisation of supply chains offers myriad opportunities for MSMEs to scale and access new markets, the call for them to disclose, verify and track their sustainability performances may prove to be a hindrance in accessing the growing pools of green supply chains, business and financing opportunities.

Project Savannah was developed to help these MSMEs overcome the challenges they face in measuring and reporting their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performances. It seeks to do so through capacity building, simplified reporting and more accessible data.

In this session, participants will exchange views on how to strengthen resourcing and incentivisation for MSMEs to undertake such reporting, and how governments, international organisations and private sector players can coordinate support. Additionally, they will discuss how Project Savannah can be scaled more rapidly and efficiently, and to which priority markets, in order for its benefits to be promulgated to areas of greatest need.

This roundtable seeks to establish the foundations for a Project Savannah implementation playbook that outlines deployment strategies, best practices, and actionable steps for current and future participants.

The UNDP, MAS, and other international parties have launched a concept called Universal Trusted Credentials (UTC). This unique concept will enable MSMEs to create digital identities and trusted credentials through a non-collaterized set of date points. Once these UTC are accepted by financial institutions, MSMEs will be able to access a wider and deeper level of financing. This concept has a huge potential to uplift MSMEs globally.
 
The UNDP will host a session for UTC introducing it as a concept, highlighting its current progress, and seeking areas for which it could further advance. The panel members include senior central bank leaders and financial institution partners. 
The aims of the session are to:
1.    Advance industry thinking on UTC and specifically around process and benefits.
2.    Harness collective experience and best-practices.
3.    Connect with different countries in order to expand and deepen UTC use in represented markets.

An electric mix of a regulator, banker, a financial supranational agency and United Nations will analyse the implications of how a new paradigm to empowering SMEs with their own trusted credentials will open up new financial inclusion and digital economy opportunities.
 
The panel will cover:
1. What is the new UTC issued by UNDP with international partners
2. How will this change the approach to financial services for SMEs, especially with the inclusion of LEIs
3. What new future services lie ahead with this combined UTC x LEI structure and which markets could benefit from this

The UNDP and MAS are articulating a set of basic Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) metrics for common adoption by MSMEs worldwide, and working with GLEIF to develop technological capabilities for MSMEs to generate a unique Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), generate digital credentials against these common metrics, and support access by MSMEs’ business and financing partners to these credentials via the global open source LEI index. This project, titled Savannah, aims to uplift MSMEs’ ability to access the proliferation of green finance and supply chain opportunities in today’s global economy.
 
Can Savannah unlock transformative impacts for local MSME communities, especially those in emerging markets? How can we maximise the value of these digital ESG ‘passports’ to the MSMEs? Can projects like Savannah fundamentally change the way larger entities, such as banks and supply chain conglomerates, engage with MSMEs in their business dealings? And how can governments work with larger industry players to strengthen the incentives, financial or otherwise, to drive greater adoption of these digital public goods? We discuss these and more.