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WEF to Unlock Billions to Realize UN Goals

WEF to Unlock Billions to Realize UN Goals
WEF to Unlock Billions to Realize UN Goals

The World Economic Forum said that it would announce three new initiatives to unlock billions of dollars of investment to help meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The initiatives are to take the form of Blended Finance initiatives that refer to the strategic orientation of development finance and philanthropic funds to mobilize private capital flows to developing markets, a WEF report said.

“Expanding public-private cooperation in the form of Blended Finance is one of the most important ways the international community can support developing countries as they seek to generate significant amounts of domestic and foreign investment required to meet their Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” head of the Center for the Global Agenda and member of the managing board, WEF’s Richard Samans, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“These kinds of initiatives can help catalyze domestic and foreign private capital at much greater scale by mitigating the risks that impede investors from pursuing otherwise attractive infrastructure and industrial investment opportunities that would create jobs and reduce poverty.”

The three Blended Finance initiatives would be announced on the sidelines of the UN Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 15.

Initiatives being launched would help mobilize investment for projects supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, starting with an initial $100 billion (about R1,234.87 billion) over the next five years, the statement said.

The World Economic Forum and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, through the work of the forum’s redesigning development finance initiative, will formally announce the new initiatives.

The WEF said Blended Finance offered a win-win-win option for all parties: wins for development finance and philanthropic funders, as they made their limited dollars go further; wins for private investors, as they generated attractive returns and most importantly and wins for populations in developing countries, as more funds were channeled to their communities in ways that enabled sustainable growth in the world’s poorest countries.

A recent survey conducted on behalf of the WEF identified 74 pooled funds and facilities representing $25.4-billion in Blended Finance assets, with the funds impacting over 177 million lives, demonstrating the tremendous potential of Blended Finance to close the funding gap required to finance the ambitious development agenda.

 

Financialtribune.com