If the world is to avert climate calamity, multilateral finance institutions must begin looking to large institutional investors as their partners and clients. The creation of a new global climate finance facility, appropriately ring-fenced from current financing initiatives, could help.

Multilateral finance institutions have committed to mobilizing capital from private investors, largely through so-called blended finance, in order to fund climate action and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. To succeed, these institutions may need to start functioning more like private investment organizations themselves.    

Multilateral development banks and development finance institutions have rightly increased their efforts to mobilize private capital. This essay discusses how a shift toward early-stage equity investment in infrastructure, and engagement with strategic investment funds, could significantly strengthen their capacity on that front, and increase the likelihood of the world achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Read more about On Project Syndicate: A New Approach to Infrastructure Finance[…]

This paper analyses the evolution of fiscal and monetary variables in Ghana, from the discovery of oil in 2007 through to 2014. It documents the deterioration of fiscal and monetary discipline over this period, which resulted in a rebound of debt, a deterioration of the external balance, and a decrease in public investment. The paper Read more about World Bank Working Paper on Oil Discovery and Macroeconomic Management[…]

Governments the world over are struggling to finance essential infrastructure, including projects for clean energy and other green developments. For emerging markets, estimates of the infrastructure financing gap over the next decade range from $500bn to more than $1tn a year. At the same time, institutional investors, operating in a low-yield environment after the financial Read more about In Global Public Investor 2017: Infrastructure financing options: Bankable projects for private investors[…]

Over the past 15 years, the number of government-sponsored strategic investment funds has grown rapidly in countries at all income levels. This paper identifies some of the challenges that these funds face in their endeavor to achieve economic policy objectives while also securing commercial financial returns – the so-called double bottom line. Through a review of Read more about World Bank Working Paper on Strategic Investment Funds[…]