Fredsgatan 2, Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm
Increasing international efforts are put on mobilizing private investments to sustainable development in poor countries. This goes for Development Finance Institutes and bilateral donors in the OECD countries as well as International Finance Institutions. One mechanism for doing this is to ‘blend’ concessionary funding / official development assistance (ODA) with funding on market terms to lift off some of the investment risk. This may enable investments that would not happen otherwise.
A new EBA report argues that this practice of ‘blending’ is on the increase among the OECD countries, but up to now mainly directing the efforts towards investments in middle income countries. This points to the question: how to reach poorer countries and groups with inclusive growth?
At the same some actors involved are specifically focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, including least developed countries. What are the main opportunities and challenges that these actors meet in their blending activities and private sector investments? How does private investment contribute to promoting inclusive growth also in such complex environments?