Paul Chan says Hong Kong is uniquely positioned to channel capital for good, while Naina Subberwal Batra opens the AVPN annual conference with a call for Asia’s impact community to take the lead in building a more inclusive world.
This week: the UK prime minister launches a new Civil Society Covenant, impact investments in Greece reach €1.8bn in 2024, half a trillion dollars is invested in gender equality across Asia Pacific, and more.
There’s an $8tn global finance gap to support SMEs, and development finance institutions alone can’t make up the shortfall in emerging economies. Research launched at the FFD4 conference spotlights how DFIs can catalyse much more capital.
As Convergence publishes figures showing the blended finance market held strong in 2024, it predicts that US-led international assistance budget cuts will put smaller, high-impact deals most at risk.
In the wake of the UK’s latest development aid cuts, Gilad Tanay says that the way the money is spent must be fixed. The answer lies in adopting ‘impact forecasting’, he argues.
The development funding we have must be put to better use as pressures mount, says Richard Hawkes – and development impact bonds can be transformative. He outlines their potential and dives into the debate about what's holding them back.
This week: impact investors unite against US foreign aid freeze; sustainability gets lukewarm embrace at Paris AI summit; concerns raised about UK government’s social investment advisory group members; and more.
As Donald Trump pulls the plug on the world’s largest aid donor, the impact investing community warns the existing funding gap to meet the SDGs will widen by billions of dollars. But is China now poised to step forward?
Yes, blended finance has its flaws, but Mariana Mazzucato’s critical UN briefing creates a misleading narrative around its role, says Joan Larrea of Convergence. The approach’s real promise is not as a gap-filler, but a market enabler.
