Resources: Blended Finance

Apr 17, 2023

Annual Reports: DFI Working Group on Blended Concessional Finance for Private Sector Projects

IFC chairs a working group of more than 20 development finance institutions (DFIs) and has been working with other multilateral development banks and DFIs to promote the adoption of the blended finance principles to ensure a strict and disciplined approach to blended concessional finance to avoid market distortions.

Mar 14, 2023

Changing Lives: Private Sector Solutions for Helping Small Farmers

This report highlights the ways that Global Agriculture and Security Program's blended finance investments and advisory support unlocks opportunity for smallholder farmers in some of the world’s poorest and most fragile countries.

English | 64 pages

Nov 22, 2022

Creating Opportunities in Challenging Markets: Highlights of IFC Investments Supported by Blended Concessional Finance

Report highlighting how blended finance helps IFC undertake high-risk, high-impact projects that create opportunity in the world’s most challenging markets.

English | 31 pages | 2022 IFC

Nov 15, 2022

Closing the Gender Finance Gap Through the Use of Blended Finance

A guide on the use of blended finance instruments to help women-led SMEs access financing to grow their business.

English | 16 pages | 2022 IFC

Sep 27, 2022

Banking on SMEs: Driving Growth, Creating Jobs

This report shows GSMEF's use of Blended Finance financial instruments and targeted Advisory Services to encourage client banks to increase their SME lending.

English | 68 pages | 2022 IFC

Jul 2, 2021

Blended Concessional Finance—The Benefits of Transparency and Access

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.

English | 8 pages—July—Note 105 | IFC 2021

Feb 3, 2021

Using Blended Concessional Finance to Invest in Challenging Markets

Why and when to use blended concessional finance to support private sector projects is outlined by IFC, in a report drawing on its two decades of experience.

English | 64 pages | IFC 2021

Dec 17, 2020

How Has COVID-19 Affected Haiti’s Apparel Industry

This joint study of 33 firms from the garment sector, that represent 87 percent of L’Association des Industries d’Haïti's (ADIH) membership and employ around 55,000 formal workers, provides key insights to help public and private decision makers navigate the crisis, and signals opportunities for the sector.

Nov 25, 2020

The Why and How of Blended Finance

The paper discusses ways to deploy concessional finance more efficiently once the rationale is correctly identified and articulated. It argues that the COVID-19 pandemic not only raises the urgency to deploy BF efficiently and effectively, it also represents an exceptional circumstance to consider the use of BF in portfolio.

English | 33 pages | 2020 IFC

Sep 30, 2019

Blended Concessional Finance: The Rise of Returnable Capital Contributions

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 could become available for collaboration with the private sector. This note explores the effects of this new model on incentives, accounting, resource management, and reporting.

English | 8 Pages - September - Note 72 | IFC 2019

Mar 29, 2019

Blended Concessional Finance: Governance Matters for Impact

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. IFC has been working 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. 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.

English | 8 Pages - March - Note 66 | IFC 2019

Nov 5, 2018

Blended Concessional Finance: Scaling Up Private Investment in Lower-Income Countries

Blending funds from private investors with concessional funds from donors and philanthropic sources has a strong potential to scale up investment in lower-income countries and thereby accelerate development. The use of blended concessional finance is already prevalent in lower-income countries representing over 70 percent of IFC’s commitments. Recent strategies from development finance institutions 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.

English | 6 pages - November - Note 60 | IFC 2018

Apr 17, 2018

Blended Finance: A Stepping Stone to Creating Markets

At the heart of IFC’s approach to blended finance are efforts to create and help sustain private markets with strong development impact. This note explores the role of blended finance in creating markets and looks at lessons from three blended finance projects and structures—and how each contributed to the creation of markets that are scalable, sustainable, and resilient.

English | 6pages - April - Note 51 - IFC 2018