How can investors measure social and economic rights and find best practices without falling into the trap of income bias when engaging sovereign issuers?

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) produces an annual income-adjusted Quality of Life index with detailed information about economic and social rights per country. They have also recently collaborated with the World Bank on research to explore a use-case of HRMI’s economic and social rights dataset. i.e. using the data to tilt the JPM Emerging Market Bond Index.

An analysis by the World Bank shows an 85% correlation between the S pillar of most currently available sovereign ESG scores and a country’s national income. According to a JPM survey, this income bias is the most dominant primary concern about sovereign ESG investing.

EMIA will host a webinar to help investors understand and use the income-adjusted index. It can serve as a basis for engaging sovereign issuers at an adequate level when it comes to social and economic rights.

Speakers:

Anne-Marie Brook: Co-founder of the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, a collaborative venture between human rights practitioners, researchers, and academics that produces a database of metrics about human rights performance around the world

Dr Susan Randolph: Co-founder of the Human Rights Measurement Initiative

Bryan Gurhy: Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the World Bank

Uwe Schillhorn: Director of the Sovereign Social Program, EMIA (moderator)

The webinar is open to emerging markets financial professionals only.