Many in the aid sector feel that the era of development led by governments may be fading — and increasingly, the private sector is being asked to step into the fore.
It’s something that development leaders have spent years calling for — and to be clear, their ambitions are still far from reality. In 2023, multilateral development banks and development financial institutions mobilized a record $87.9 billion in private capital, according to a joint analysis prepared by those groups — that is, attracting that capital by offering guarantees, co-financing deals, and providing incentives that make private investors more willing to invest in projects they might otherwise avoid.
And while that figure was 24% higher than the cash raised in 2022, it was far from the trillions that the world had hoped for a decade earlier.