NextBillion - A WDI Publication

• Universal Health Coverage: Primary Health Care & Community Health Systems
• Lifelong Wellness: Chronic Conditions, Mental Health & Aging
• One Health & Climate Resilience: Nutrition and Food Security
• Digital Transformation of Health Systems: Public Digital Infrastructure, Data, AI & Interoperability
• Health Equity: Youth, Women & the Health Workforce
• HealthTech Entrepreneurship: Financing, Governing & Scaling HealthTech Innovation

The Africa Healthtech Summit Canada – AHTSx Canada will bring together leaders across health, innovation, policy, and investment. It’s a great opportunity for individuals working in global health, market-based solutions, or health innovation in emerging markets.

About This Event
For decades, institutional investors have treated authoritarianism mainly as a political or ethical issue—managed by governance committees, exclusion lists, or country-risk experts—not as a primary consideration in portfolio construction.

That approach is no longer defensible.

Authoritarianism today functions less as a discrete regime type and more as a systemic institutional condition: the steady erosion of institutional checks on power, weakening of the rule of law, and degradation of information integrity. When these conditions take hold, as they are in the United States, they undermine the systemic frameworks on which modern capital markets depend. Performance of individual stocks and portfolio’s become increasingly influenced by proximity to power and whether the firm is in the good graces of political leaders. Jed has written a series of Substack posts about the risks posed to investors (large and small) by authoritarian political systems.

Our session will be a reflection on the drift toward authoritarianism in the US and abroad, exploring ideas regarding how authoritarianism—despite a short term run up in the stock market!—is bad for business and investors. We’ll review key concepts from Jed’s writings on the topic of authoritarianism as investor risk and then discuss the need for business and community leaders to raise our voice in opposition to executive overreach. An active discussion will follow, including how to slow democratic backsliding.

About the Speaker
Jed Emerson is founder of Blended Value Group, a consulting and advisory firm working with investment firms, funds, family offices and foundations to advance more effective wealth management and impact investing strategy and practice.

Emerson is a Senior Fellow with the Blended Finance Initiative at the University of Zurich, a Senior Research Fellow at University of Heidelberg’s Center on Social Investing in Germany and has held faculty appointments at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford business schools. He has taught social entrepreneurship at Kellogg Business School, Harvard Business School, and NYU-Abu Dhabi.

In the late 90s, Emerson coined the concept of Blended Value to describe the reality that the value we create in our lives and through our investing is a blend of social, environmental and economic elements. While the value we create is whole, society asks us to choose between doing well or doing good, making money or engaging in philanthropy and working in nonprofit or for-profit organizations. Emerson’s last book, The Purpose of Capital: Elements of Impact, Financial Flows, and Natural Being, explores how we may bridge the divide between how we think about doing well and doing good.

Time: 4:00 PM ET

Extreme heat is one of the fastest-growing risks for cities and communities, with the greatest impacts often felt by low-income households, informal settlements and people with limited access to safe cooling.

Cool Talks spotlight innovative solutions, policies, and partnerships across the sustainable cooling landscape. From passive cooling and refrigerants to finance, technology, and just access, each session brings together global experts to exchange knowledge, inspire action, and accelerate progress toward a cooler, more resilient future.

This UNEP Cool Talk will explore findings from new research led by University of Michigan in Brazil, Colombia and Burkina Faso about how passive cooling interventions can reduce indoor heat exposure in vulnerable settlements. Taking place shortly after Heat Action Day and World Environment Day 2026, the discussion will connect evidence on indoor heat with practical city and community action, from housing improvements and passive cooling to urban planning, heat governance and implementation through Beat the Heat.

Speakers:

Ekta Jhaveri – Moderator & Program Manager, Climate-Health William Davidson Institute

Eva Gurría – Partnerships and External Relations, NBSAP Accelerator Partnership

Aynur Kadihasanoglu – Senior Urban Specialist, Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre

Elsa Lefèvre – Programme Management Officer, Subnational Climate Action·United Nations Environment Programme

Ana Paula Pimentel Walker – Associate Professor, Urban Planning·University of Michigan

Julian Constantino Carvajal – Legal Consultant, Unidad Administrativa Especial de Servicios Públicos

Gabriel Harp – Director of Research and Creative Practice Development·University of Michigan

Access the agenda here.

Time: 15:00 – 16:00 CEST / 09:00 – 10:00 AM ET

Register Here