The head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has warned that innovative financial instruments and private sector mobilization are only of limited use when it comes to helping the world’s poorest people.
Speaking to Devex ahead of a summit in Paris this week, designed to strike a new pact between wealthy and low-income countries, Peter Sands said that getting multilateral development banks to stimulate private investment in low-income, conflict-affected countries “is not going to really work … because you are not going to get rational private capital investing significant sums in those parts of the world.”
A draft declaration for the Paris summit, drawn up by the French organizers and seen by Devex, reiterates the need for “new, innovative and stable sources of finance,” especially to tackle poverty and climate change. However, it is light on new financial commitments, and as Devex has reported, shareholders are themselves split over whether to inject new capital into, for instance, MDBs.
About the author
Vince Chadwickvchadw
Vince Chadwick is a contributing reporter at Devex. A law graduate from Melbourne, Australia, he was social affairs reporter for The Age newspaper, before covering breaking news, the arts, and public policy across Europe, including as a reporter and editor at POLITICO Europe. He was long-listed for International Journalist of the Year at the 2023 One World Media Awards.
