Target 17.5: Investment promotion for least developed countries
Adopt and implement investment promotion regimes for least developed countries
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Investment promotion regimes are adopted by governments, and their purpose is to attract corporate capital, so multinational investment decisions determine whether the regimes deliver. UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2024 notes that FDI to structurally weak and vulnerable economies rose in 2023, with LDC inflows reaching 31 billion dollars, but remained concentrated in a few countries. The same report notes SDG-linked investment fell more than 10 percent. Adoption of the regimes themselves, host-country policy and development-finance risk mitigation are outside corporate control, and lobbying is immaterial. Owners of multinationals and infrastructure investors can help at the margin by pressing for LDC investment strategies. The corporate investment response is a helpful lever rather than a necessary obstacle that owners remove.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. Investment promotion regimes are adopted by host governments. ICCR's only least-developed-country results concern climate negotiations and Bangladeshi garment worker rights, neither of which asks companies to invest in LDCs. No shareholder proposal, investor letter or proxy voting policy asking companies to adopt LDC investment strategies was located.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.