Publication: Using Blended Concessional Finance to Invest in Challenging Markets: Economic Considerations, Transparency, Governance, and Lessons of Experience
Loading...
Published
2021-02-01
ISSN
Date
2021-09-14
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Blended concessional finance is the combination of concessional funds from development partners with commercial finance from development finance institutions (DFIs) and private sources. These resources can be used strategically to help mitigate risk in challenging emerging markets and attract private investment where it otherwise would not go. It can be an important source of finance to help reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and address the economic challenges brought on by Coronavirus (COVID-19). This report examines IFC’s two decades of experience supporting pioneering projects with blended concessional finance. The report addresses issues such as why and when concessional finance is appropriate to support private sector projects; the key transparency, access, and governance processes required to implement projects efficiently and effectively; the principles for selecting and structuring projects; how to use blended concessional finance to invest in lower-income countries; and the different ways of structuring concessional finance facilities used by DFIs.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“International Finance Corporation. 2021. Using Blended Concessional Finance to Invest in Challenging Markets: Economic Considerations, Transparency, Governance, and Lessons of Experience. © International Finance Corporation. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36262 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Blended Finance for Climate Investments in India(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-13)The document collection focuses on the concept of blended finance for climate investments, emphasizing the need for innovative financial mechanisms to address climate change. It discusses the potential of blending public and private capital to mobilize investment in climate-related projects, aiming to achieve both environmental and financial returns. The collection explores various models and case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of blended finance in driving sustainable development and combating climate change on a global scale.Publication Blended Concessional Finance(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2021-07)Blended concessional finance, the combination of commercial finance from the private sector and development finance institutions (DFIs) with concessional finance from public and other sources, is increasingly being used by DFIs to support developmentally important projects where normal DFI or commercial finance is not available because of the high risks involved. This can be especially significant in lower-income and fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS), where risks are high and innovative and pioneering projects can be critical to economic growth, market creation, and poverty reduction. Blended concessional finance is also being used during the COVID-19 pandemic to help sustain struggling businesses hurt by demand and supply shocks, and to rebuild economies toward green, resilient, and inclusive growth. As blended concessional finance involves the use of concessional public or philanthropic1 funds to enhance the viability of private sector projects, strong processes, particularly in the areas of transparency, access, and governance, are necessary to ensure that these resources are used effectively and without distorting markets.Publication Blended Concessional Finance(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2019-03)Blended concessional finance, the combination of concessional funds with other types of finance on commercial terms, has great potential to mobilize capital and accelerate high-impact private sector investments in new and challenging markets. Yet full development of these efforts requires strong governance. International Finance Corporation (IFC) has been working for some time to develop a robust governance system for blended concessional finance, guided by the development finance institutions enhanced principles, a set of principles that employ special operating procedures and checks and balances when using blended concessional finance for private sector projects. While no universal approach will fit all implementers of blended concessional finance, good governance is a common challenge. These institutions need to learn from each other to ensure good governance, as the sharing of experiences is crucial to building global trust in the use of concessional funds. And to work well, governance structures need to be transparent and focus on solving potential conflicts of interest.Publication Blended Concessional Finance(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2018-11)Blending funds from private investors with concessional funds from donors and philanthropic sourceshas a strong potential to scale up investment in lower-income countries and thereby acceleratedevelopment. The use of blended concessional finance is already prevalent in lower-income countriesrepresenting over 70 percent of IFC’s commitments. Recent strategies from development financeinstitutions including the World Bank Group indicate that the relative share of lower-income countries in the global mix of blended concessional finance will increase further. Scaling up engagements in lower-income countries requires solutions tailored to local contexts, as well as the deployment of the whole spectrum of development finance tools, including advisory work, regulatory dialogue and reform, and a mix of blending instruments encompassing both pricing and risk mitigation features.Publication Blended Concessional Finance(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2019-09)In new and challenging markets, blended concessional finance - the combining of concessional funds with other types of finance, on commercial terms - is increasingly used to mobilize capital and accelerate high impact private sector investments. However, a relatively new approach for the provision of concessional capital for use by development finance institutions is emerging - the returnable capital model. With this new model, principal, interest, and other amounts are repaid to the original provider of funds (usually a government) on a regular basis. Because this can reduce the impact on donor government budgets, more government funds can become available for collaboration with the private sector. This note explores the effects of this new model on incentives, accounting, resource management, and reporting.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Watershed Development in India : An Approach Evolving through Experience(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-03)This report analyses the experiences and lessons from three World Bank-Supported watershed development projects in the Indian states of Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.5 The primary reason for the analysis was to guide the development and execution of new watershed programs in India, including new Bank-supported state-level operations in Uttarakhand and Karnataka, and a proposed national project now under preparation. Accordingly, it was important to deepen the knowledge base about large-scale, community-led watershed development in order to share that knowledge with key stakeholders both inside and outside of the World Bank. Another important reason was the immediate and growing concern over water resources and their management in India and the question of how well watershed development programs internalize these concerns. A third impetus was the nexus between rural poverty and rainfed agriculture and the important role that watershed development programs are to fulfill in the development of sustainable rural livelihoods.Publication Methodology for a World Bank Human Capital Index(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09)This paper describes the methodology for a new World Bank Human Capital Index (HCI). The HCI combines indicators of health and education into a measure of the human capital that a child born today can expect to obtain by her 18th birthday, given the risks of poor education and health that prevail in the country where she lives. The HCI is measured in units of productivity relative to a benchmark of complete education and full health, and ranges from 0 to 1. A value of x on the HCI indicates that a child born today can expect to be only x x100 percent as productive as a future worker as she would be if she enjoyed complete education and full health. The methodology of the HCI is anchored in the extensive literature on development accounting.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Annuities and Other Retirement Products : Designing the Payout Phase(World Bank, 2011-02-18)This book examines recent changes in the landscape of retirement products and annuity markets in five countries. All the selected countries (Australia, Chile, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland) have mandatory or quasi-mandatory savings schemes. But they also exhibit significant differences in the structure of their pension systems, the relative importance of public pillars, the role and structure of private provision, the level of annuitization, and the structure and focus of their regulatory frameworks. Five studies have been commissioned to examine the state of annuity markets in each of these countries. The findings of these studies are summarized in the last five chapters of this book. The chapters of this book is discusses the various risks faced by pensioners and the risk characteristics of alternative retirement products, and it reviews the risks faced by providers of retirement products and the management and regulatory challenges of dealing with those risks. The chapter then discusses the risks faced by providers and reviews the challenges of various regulatory issues, ranging from the institutional organization of the market for retirement products to the regulation of marketing and pricing policies and the regulation of risk management. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of main points and conclusions.Publication Blended Finance for Climate Investments in India(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-13)The document collection focuses on the concept of blended finance for climate investments, emphasizing the need for innovative financial mechanisms to address climate change. It discusses the potential of blending public and private capital to mobilize investment in climate-related projects, aiming to achieve both environmental and financial returns. The collection explores various models and case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of blended finance in driving sustainable development and combating climate change on a global scale.