Today, the G20 will be hosting their Global Health Summit in Rome. Before it, the Chair of a World Health Organisation (WHO) panel that wants to set up a new global body that will focus on improving healthcare investment warned that ‘ states that invest too little in public health could have their credit ratings cut ’. Whilst the sentiment is that the richer nations should be incentivised with a ‘stick’ to invest more in their healthcare programmes, there is am associated problem that has not been addressed.   Mario Monti, the former Italian Prime Minister and the Chair of the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development, argued that ‘a pandemic like this one poses huge threats not just to financial stability but to the whole economic and financial system’. This, of course, is true. To counter against future health-related economic shocks, the panel has proposed that a ‘Global Health Board’ be established to prevent future pandemics and coordinate global responses

Yesterday, in Paris, President Macron hosted a Summit on the Financing of African Economies post-Covid. As part of that Summit, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa took aim at the credit rating agencies, focusing on their impact on growth on the Continent.   In his speech, Ramaphosa labelled the international rating agencies as a ‘ deterrent to countries who seek to take advantage of credible and transparent credit relief measures ’, adding that in addition to allowing for economic growth, one of the most important factors was to allow the flow of resources to head towards the healthcare infrastructures, and not the servicing of debts in the first instance – this is what I have been calling the ‘credit rating impasse’. He also spoke about the need for equitable vaccination programmes to continue and be developed, as well as the importance of allowing for a vulnerable-nation-focused issuing of Special Drawing Rights (in particular, the idea of developed nations, who have a high

Today’s short post reacts to a webinar held recently by Funds Europe , which focused on ESG Reporting Standards as the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) went live in March. During the webinar, the issues of ESG Rating Agencies came to the fore, unsurprisingly. Familiar issues were put forward, but predictions from experts matched the conclusions that I also came to in my recent book – Sustainability Rating Agencies vs Credit Rating Agencies: The Battle to Serve the Mainstream Investor .   The article that reviews that webinar (found here ) reviews each of the sentiments from the participants, starting with Andrew Parry, the head of sustainable investments at Newton Investment Management, who suggests that the reason that people buy things like investment products is for return, not to be exposed to increased information on that product. He goes on to state that a survey of Newton’s clients found that only 23% of their client base actually knew what the term ESG

The UK, as a result of its decision to leave the EU, does not have to implement the Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulations (amongst others) and, therefore, has the option to find equivalence in its own way (as it seeks to do). However, with sustainability massively on the agenda on both sides of the Atlantic (and further afield), the UK and the US are now pushing to catch up. One question, however, is how to handle the ESG rating problem? The Financial Conduct Authority is currently responding to a roundtable they held on the issue and are making statements regarding what the options are moving forward. Yet, is it all talk? Is there even anything that can truly be done?   The problems with the ESG rating agencies are that they are, as a group, relatively new and extremely inconsistent. We have already examined this in the blog and have introduced the ‘ Aggregate Confusion Project ’ that is developing at MIT, and has shown emphatically that there are serious issues withi