There is also a more prominent role for financial institutions to advocate for or provide advisory services to businesses in sustainability areas. For Islamic finance, green sukuk issuances have served as a bridge between Islamic finance and sustainable investment. However, more is required for Islamic finance to have greater impact and this pursuit can be further enhanced with the VBI initiative. With this Islamic financial institutions will be able to play an important role in supporting the 2030 Government’s Shared Prosperity Agenda. Nevertheless this will not be without its challenges. Balancing different priorities on the social, economic and environmental fronts is a delicate act, as these may seemingly pull in different directions. It is inevitable there will be issues and challenges that need to be addressed on the path to attaining sustainability goals. I would like to touch on three key challenges and share the Bank’s views and strategies in responding to these and to further accelerate our journey. First, is the low level of awareness, understanding and appreciation of sustainability practices and what it entails among stakeholders. This has led to limited integration of sustainability-related consideration in individual and institutional practices. Knowledge gaps among financiers in technical areas of the sectors relating to sustainable or green financing such as renewable energy, sustainable agro-production and manufacturing, and social entreprenuership has naturally contributed to apprehension in financing new and relatively unknown sectors. A necessity in achieving scale will be to inculcate awareness on the need for and benefits of a green and sustainable economy.
Indeed, regardless of whether decisions are taken by a general Bank Board or a specialized Policy Committee, the ‘ideal’ system for decision-making should encompass the following basic properties: a)  diversity of opinions  b)  regularity  c)  separateness  d)  staff independence  e)  openness  f)  dealing with uncertainty  Diversity of opinions is a consequence of the basic lesson we have learnt from the history of monetary policy. Milton Friedman said in 1968: ‘The first and most important lesson that history teaches about what monetary policy can do – and it is a lesson of the most profound importance – is that monetary policy can prevent money itself from being a major source of economic disturbance’. This implies that relative smoothness in practical decision making seems to be desirable for any monetary policy practice. In this regard, international experience and experimental research1 have shown that decisions taken by a ‘decision-making body’ seem to be superior ex post to decisions taken by an individual, as the latter are more vulnerable to sudden changes in monetary policy stance. It is argued that a significant improvement in policy conduct can be associated with policy makers learning from each other’s decisions. Regularity means not only that the decision-making body should meet on a regular basis, but in particular that the decision-making process should be taken in a standard framework and should be based on a standard set of policy documents.