Enabling Task Force

Blended Finance Task Force

About the Task Force

The Sustainable Markets Initiative Blended Finance Task Force aims to develop solutions that will help mobilise finance at scale and promote innovation to drive industry, create value and support sustainable solutions. Members will help to unlock capital that is needed to realise global commitments on climate change and sustainable development, including in emerging economies where climate change has an even greater adverse impact. This type of financing can play a key role in making hard-to-invest projects more investable, driving greater capital flows and expanding the use of blended and layered financing.

The Task Force supports the following objectives:

Developing a stronger pipeline of ”investor-ready” projects
Scaling the use of de-risking tools and solutions
Increasing engagement between the private and public sector

The Task Force promotes leadership and collaboration in the Blended Finance space, in the pursuit of tangible, scalable and lasting sustainable business and financing practices. It will help to identify blended finance solutions that enable the private sector to dramatically scale investment and deploy capital to accelerate the transition to net zero, particularly in emerging and developing markets.

What is Blended Finance?

It uses development finance, such as grants or loans from governments or charities, to lower the risk for private investors – therefore attracting private investors who seek financial returns. With that financing, clean technologies, renewable energy projects and other sustainable initiatives can scale low-carbon projects that otherwise may have not been initiated due to their complexity or challenging areas or implementation. Blended Finance can also demonstrate the power of leveraging flexible financing which can produce loan guarantees or first-loss structures that then can attract private capital and mitigate investment risk.

Scaling Private Capital Mobilisation

Emerging markets and development countries (EMDCs) face an annual investment gap of more than USD $4 trillion to achieve the UN SDGs, according to UNCTAD's estimates. Along with nine other leading organizations’, our Task Force has come together to advocate for scaling private capital mobilisation to address this issue through a Call to Action that was launched at COP28.

News

Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Blended Task Force announced new members and strategic partnerships. Focused on mobilising additional private capital, scaling investment and reducing risk.

Read the press release here

Reports

PDF 25 September 2024

Blended Finance Best Practice: Case studies and lessons learned

A guide for how blended finance can be a catalyst for scaled up investment in sustainable transition.
PDF 01 May 2022

Blended Finance, MDB Optimisation and Private Capital Mobilisation

The private sector urged policymakers to rapidly scale the mobilization of private capital in emerging markets via blended finance in 2021. This included five primary recommendations which are outlined in the report.
PDF 01 October 2021

Seizing a New Bretton Woods Moment

Bretton Woods helped restore global integration by promoting economic cooperation after World War II. Institutional assets now surpass BW Conference's scale, highlighting a need to update the development finance model for today's global economy.

Climate change requires an extraordinary amount of capital investment to scale solutions on a global level. It also requires the private and public sectors working together to create strategic partnerships that will get things done. Blended Finance takes hard to do investments and makes them more scalable and investable by considering specific risks related to the different markets. In the end, it has the potential to bring trillions of dollars to advance a wide range of issues and provide global benefits.

Marc-André Blanchard, Executive Vice-President and Head of CDPQ Global and Global Head of Sustainability at CDPQ and Chair of the Sustainable Markets Initiative Blended Finance Task Force

Task Force Members

Bank of America

CDPQ

EY

HSBC

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG)

Ninety One

State Street

Strategic Partners

Global Infrastructure Hub

Investor Leadership Network

Further information

For Task Force enquiries please contact:

Email: info@sustainable-markets.org