World Economic Forum

Published purpose

The project aims to expand the pool of foreign and domestic capital available for economic and social development in developing countries, through strategic, deliberate blending of public and private capital. For purposes of this initiative, blended finance refers to a wide range of structures and tools that mobilize capital flows at scale to emerging and frontier markets in such sectors as infrastructure, agriculture, health, education and clean energy. Activities include: (1) creating a roadmap to mainstreaming blended finance; (2) organizing technical workshops for operational contacts as well as high-level convenings among development and private sector institutions; and (3) building a platform for partners and a shareable catalogue of blended financing opportunities and initiatives for development institutions and other stakeholders. This project also facilitates a common lexicon and showcases successful existing models of development finance. It commits capital to new blended investment partnerships with a methodology to generate evidence going forward, improves institutional readiness for blended finance among key donor institutions and increases collaboration and alignment of capital by public, private and philanthropic actors. This is a joint global project by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) that is supported by both public and private organizations including DFATD, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank and the Abraaj Group.