As development finance navigates a changing landscape and leans into private capital, a focus on sustainability, enabling environments, alignment, clarity, and upfront coordination is all necessary, experts said at a Devex event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week.
One of the current challenges, particularly when it comes to blended finance — or the use of catalytic capital from public or philanthropic sources to increase private sector investment — is alignment between all the capital providers, said Arsalan Mahtafar, director of development impact at the J.P. Morgan Development Finance Institution.
While the private sector is clear about what it demands in terms of profits and terms, and even impact investors are often clear about eligibility criteria and what reporting they need, other sources, including public or philanthropic capital, “struggle with the clarity issue,” he said.
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About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
