Global Fund chief warns innovative finance ‘a proxy’ for actual giving

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.