WEF initiatives to unlock billions

A participant is reflected in a mirror during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Picture: Reuters

A participant is reflected in a mirror during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Picture: Reuters

Published Jul 14, 2015

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Johannesburg - The World Economic Forum said on Tuesday that it would announce three new initiatives to unlock billions of dollars of investment to help meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The initiatives are to take the form of Blended Finance initiatives which refer to the strategic orientation of development finance and philanthropic funds to mobilise private capital flows to developing markets.

“Expanding public-private cooperation in the form of Blended Finance is one of the most important ways the international community can support developing countries as they seek to generate significant amounts of domestic and foreign investment required to meet their Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” Head of the Centre for the Global Agenda, and Member of the Managing Board, World Economic Forum Richard Samans said in a statement on Tuesday.

“These kinds of initiatives can help catalyse domestic and foreign private capital at much greater scale by mitigating the risks that impede investors from pursuing otherwise attractive infrastructure and industrial investment opportunities that would create jobs and reduce poverty.”

The three Blended Finance initiatives would be announced on the sidelines of the UN Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 15.

Initiatives being launched would help to mobilise investment for projects supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), starting with an initial $100 billion (about R1234.87 billion) over the next five years, the statement said.

The World Economic Forum and the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), through the work of the Forum’s ReDesigning Development Finance Initiative (RDFI), will formally announce the new initiatives.

The WEF said that Blended Finance offered a win-win-win option for all parties: wins for development finance and philanthropic funders, as they made their limited dollars go further; wins for private investors, as they generated attractive returns, and most importantly, wins for populations in developing countries, as more funds were channelled to their communities in ways that enabled sustainable growth in the world’s poorest countries.

A recent survey conducted on behalf of the WEF identified 74 pooled funds and facilities representing $25.4 billion in Blended Finance assets, with the funds impacting over 177 million lives, demonstrating the tremendous potential of Blended Finance to close the funding gap required to finance the ambitious development agenda.

“I am proud that Canada has played a lead role in the creation of Convergence with the tremendous support of the other founding members. We know that post-2015, financing the SDGs will be challenging. Innovative initiatives like this will help expand the pool of foreign and domestic capital for projects that accelerate social and economic progress in the developing world “, said Christian Paradis, Minister of International Development and Minister for La Francophonie, Canada.

‘’There is plenty of money in the world available for sustainable development. Blending public and private finance is the best way to mobilize the $4 trillion needed to achieve the proposed Sustainable Development Goals’’, said Erik Solheim, Chair, Development Assistance Committee (DAC), OECD.

ANA

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