The development finance landscape is in flux — and the year ahead is likely to deepen an already clear shift: as public finance tightens, private capital is expected to play a larger role.
“There will be no fundamental change in the availability of capital for development finance unless we bring the private capital. For me, that has been clear for years and is more clear now than ever,” said Marcos Neto, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations Development Programme and director of UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, at a recent Devex Pro event.
Donors facing pressure to stretch limited resources are increasingly looking to private capital mobilization as part of the answer. Many bilateral donors, constrained by fiscal realities, see contributions to multilateral development banks and development finance institutions as their preferred channel of engagement, Frederique Dahan, director of the development and public finance programme at ODI, said at the Devex Pro event.