Triangular co-operation has proven to be a powerful, inclusive tool to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that combines partners’ comparative advantages and complementary expertise in a way so that the sum of their efforts is greater than the parts each of them is playing. At the "Market place for triangular co-operation projects", representatives from the private sector, multilateral and national development banks, and philanthropy, will present projects and ideas to gather inputs or include new partners for ongoing triangular co-operation initiatives. It is also an opportunity to meet and bring together new partners - extending the scope of their work.

The African Tax Administration forum will highlight the role of tax in private finance for sustainable development, and share the tools they have developed in this respect and the impact it has had on member countries.

International pension funds are increasingly engaging in investments with the aim of achieving the SDGs in developing countries. This session will look at emerging examples of international pension funds that are active in the space of investing in sustainable development in developing countries. What are the risks, challenges and opportunities, and how can the model be scaled up?

To ensure accountability on the appropriate use and value for money of development finance, blended finance operations should be monitored on the basis of clear results frameworks, measuring, reporting on and communicating on financial flows, commercial returns as well as development results. This entails agreeing on performance and result metrics from the start; tracking financial flows, commercial performance, and development results; dedicating appropriate resources for monitoring and evaluation; and ensuring public transparency and accountability on blended finance operations.

The session will discuss the implications of biodiversity loss and prevention of that loss for businesses and financial organisations, and options for scaling up business action and finance for biodiversity. It will notably discuss key options and priorities to enable private finance (especially institutional investment) in support of biodiversity action. It will draw on emerging practices from investors and corporations, e.g. in sustainable land-use. It will also discuss the role of public finance from MDBs and PFIs to help mobilise institutional investment in support of biodiversity action.

The Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) has recently launched the Kampala Principles that provide guidance on the effective use of public resources in establishing new or improving existing partnerships with the private sector at the country level. The principles assist governments, businesses and other actors in improving partnerships for the benefit of people and planet. This event will explore how to translate the Kampala Principles into action for different stakeholder groups and help to ensure public and private investments and operations align to national development priorities and the SDGs.

In order to harness the full potential of finance the SDGs, we need to work towards a shared understanding of how we measure the impact of our collective investments in sustainable development. This workshop aims at bringing together experts and practitioners from different communities, to discuss the opportunity of developing an impact framework for development, building on the work of the Impact Management Project (IMP) and other initiatives.

The OECD, Moody’s and Convergence will host a workshop, in coordination with the THK Practices and Mobilisation Working Groups, dedicated to blended finance (innovative finance) approaches to mitigate risk of investing in developing countries to mobilise private investment. The session is designed for blended finance practitioners from development agencies, philanthropic foundations, MDBs/DFIs and private sector. The session includes three segments: (1) Convergence and OECD to profile need to mobilise and history of actual projects in the past decade, (2) Moody’s will present and profile the issuers/issuances it has rated and (iii) a collaborative workshop with active participation. The workshop will lead to the research and publication of two reports in March 2020: Moody’s Sector In-Depth Repot and Convergence Blended Finance Report.

A multi-stakeholder panel, this side-event will critically explore the potential of blended finance to fill the SDG gap and the opportunities and threats that come with it, looking at the health sector in particular. This will be a dynamic panel discussion aiming to move the conversation on blended finance beyond the usual framing and focus.

Private philanthropy has played an increasingly important role in development co-operation, particularly in the context of the SDGs. But what are the main attributes and volume of philanthropy in the current landscape of development finance? What can philanthropy bring to the international debate on advancing the SDGs beyond their financial contribution? This workshop will invite the largest philanthropic foundations and other stakeholders to exchange their views and expertise in this domain, building upon the unique OECD statistics on private philanthropy for development.

The OECD Survey on Blended Finance Funds and Facilities represents a major step forward to consolidate evidence and provide further policy guidance in support of the OECD DAC Blended Finance Principles, whose focus is unlocking commercial finance for the Sustainable Development Goals. The 180 responses collected in 2018 illustrate to what extent blended finance funds and facilities vary widely in characteristics and functioning. Collectively, the managing organisations reported over USD 60.2 billion invested in 111 developing countries at the end of 2017. The OECD will present findings from the 2018 survey edition relating to: • The management, capital structure, investment strategy and portfolio allocation of the surveyed blended finance funds and facilities, • Their development strategy, performance tracking and evaluation approach This new evidence confirms trends observed on the broader blended finance market (priority sectors, geographical coverage, targeted SDGs), while shedding light on additional aspects (e.g. investors, clients and investment instruments). The discussion will benefit from additional insights: • The German Institute for Development Evaluation (Deval) will share key learnings from a recent evaluation study on Structured Funds involving German development cooperation. • The Global Impact Investing Network will relate their experience in conducting the Annual Impact Investor Survey. • The Wharton Social Impact Initiative will present its ongoing research on the private equity and venture capital market.

National development banks (NDBs) are poised to play a key role in aligning private finance with the SDGs and the objectives of the Paris Agreement. While the assets under management in NDBs dwarf multilateral development bank financing in many developing countries, their transformative potential goes beyond the sheer volumes of finance provided. Their unique value added lies in the ability to support policy makers and market creation, the provision of local currency financing and their role in intermediating international climate finance. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Development Finance Club (IDFC) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) are jointly organizing this side event to discuss the role of NDBs, collate evidence on challenges to unlock their potential, and explore opportunities to address these challenges. The discussion will draw on key messages of the OECD report 'Scaling up climate-compatible infrastructure: Insights from national development banks in Brazil and South Africa' and the launch of a new ODI report ‘Securing climate-smart investment through national development banks’. It will further highlight key next steps and priority action areas for NDBs in raising ambition within the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Low income countries continue to face a growing financing gap between infrastructure investments needed and the financial resources available for them. A key driver of this is the significant and largely unmet need to increase the volume and duration of local currency finance for infrastructure investment. Most infrastructure projects in low-income countries earn revenues in local currency. Therefore, the significant foreign exchange risk associated with hard currency financing is eliminated when debt interest and principal are also payable in local currency. Guarantees provide an important catalyst and multiplier effect on expanding local bank, pension fund and institutional investor participation in offering local currency financing to capital intensive industries such as infrastructure – where longer maturity profiles are a necessity. Guarantees encourage this by offering credit enhancing attributes that improve the risk profile and rating of local currency credit, allowing local currency investors with regulatory restrictions a framework to be able to participate in financing these projects. Local currency guarantees, through novel approaches such as liquidity or tenor extension products, are also able to facilitate the extension in maturity of local currency transactions, thereby allowing local banks to offer longer maturity profiles to infrastructure projects; addressing the liquidity and short-term lending restrictions many of them currently face. Therefore, guarantees are strongly positioned to act as a critical component in scaling up risk mitigation in low income countries and allowing the growth of local currency financing. And in the face of the debilitating finance gap in low income countries, providing comfort to pension fund and private institutional investors is crucial in growing long-term local currency financing.

Although global green bond issuance is on the rise, social bond issuance is still low. To bridge the financing gap in areas where the flow of private finance is scanty (such as global health and nutrition), it is indispensable to learn from experiences and best practices on the deployment of diverse innovative financing instruments, such as social impact bonds. Participants will gain insights from one of the biggest Japanese Institutional investors and experts on global health and nutrition and agriculture.

The roundtable, hosted by the DAC Network on Development Evaluation, will discuss how blended finance, and its associated terms such as additionality and impact, are defined and used by different actors, as part of an ongoing study to map these differences and consider their implications for evaluating the development results of blended finance. This study is part of the OECD's DAC Network on Development Evaluation (EvalNet) work, led by DANIDA (Denmark), Deval (Germany), and Norad (Norway) to address the evaluation challenges related to blended finance.

In 2015, global leaders committed to the 2030 Agenda, sending a strong signal that reaching the SDGs was only possible with the help of private finance. Half a decade later, although private finance for sustainable development has increased, hundreds of trillions of capital continues to be allocated to unsustainable and climate-incompatible activities. This panel will take stock of the progress made towards mainstreaming sustainable finance, identify the main obstacles to alignment and discuss the incentives needed to shift public and private funds towards sustainable development in developing countries.

Assessing alignment of private financ with sustainable development: two different perspectives

Digital finance can ease the delivery of, and access to, financial services, with major impacts on financial inclusion in developing and emerging countries. Financial innovation has great potential for efficiency gains, better accountability systems and increased transparency. There are also risks, however, such as the proliferation of fraud and illicit financial flows, as well as aggressive pricing and screening. And it is not automatic: financial innovation may be hindered by poor digital infrastructure, weak investment climate and complex governance systems. This interactive session will invite experienced innovators to discuss the potential for digital technologies to improve the alignment of finance with sustainable development.

SDG 8 promotes “sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”. The fact that 30 million African youth are expected to enter the labour market every year by 2030 makes this one of the most pressing challenges facing sustainable development. Beyond employment creation, SDG 8 also calls for reducing informal employment, narrowing the gender pay gap and improving working conditions. How can development finance institutions and private actors work better together to direct investment towards SDG 8 while aligning with countries’ national priorities? How can they promote quality employment creation in developing countries? And how can they measure the direct and indirect impacts of their investment on the quantity and quality of jobs created?

The majority of private finance to developing countries is flowing to activities with potential for revenue generation and economic gains, while social sectors continue to rely on domestic and international public financing. This session will explore if and how innovative financing mechanisms can channel more private capital towards the goals of gender equality (SDG 5), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), climate action (SDG 13) and life below water (SDG 14).

Many private finance approaches for gender equality and women’s empowerment (SDG 5) come together under broad definitions of gender lens investing (GLI) and social impact investing (SII). GLI links commercial investors and private asset managers with gender equality outcomes through a range of instruments. Publicly listed GLI for example channelled an estimated USD 2.4 billion globally to private companies in 2018, while a scan of private equity and venture capital GLI found 58 funds with USD 1.3 billion invested as of 2017. According to the OECD 2018 Survey on Blended Finance Funds and Facilities, 55% of funds and facilities were aligned with SDG 5, up from 35% in 2016. This session will build on recent OECD analysis on financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment in developing countries and present promising case studies to better align private finance with SDG 5.

The ocean is the planet’s main life support system; highly interconnected to all terrestrial ecosystems and the climate. More than 3 billion people rely on it for their livelihoods worldwide, and an expected global population of 9 billion by 2050 will require producing more food, energy and jobs from the ocean. For developing countries, ocean-based industries are key sources of income and drivers of economic growth. However, emerging evidence suggests that SDG14 is among the least financed. Building on emerging evidence from the OECD and the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, this session will provide a space to discuss current challenges and opportunities to align finance to life below water.

Aligning all financial flows with low-emission, climate-resilient development is a central objective of the Paris Agreement, and it is now clear that to realise sustainable development, public and private finance needs to address the climate emergency. As we enter 2020, dubbed by many as the global ‘use it or lose it’ year, a step change is needed in aligning finance with climate objectives and making the right investment decisions. Building on findings of the OECD report ‘Aligning Development Co-operation and Climate Action: The Only Way Forward’, this session will provide a space to take stock of international and country-level efforts to align private finance with the objectives of the Paris Agreement in developing countries, assess progress to date, and explore opportunities to increase impact and accelerate action.

In 11 years from now, we will be held accountable for our promises. It is time to act. We know where to go, but a significant gap between intentions and action remains. What will it take to set a new course towards more sustainable development in countries most in need?

Domestic pension funds have an important role in generating long-term financial resources and facilitating the growth of capital markets. Ideas are emerging that domestic pension fund resources may be directed towards SDG financing. There is, however, a lot of complexity to using pension systems to support financing of the SDGs. This breakfast meeting will look at some of the risks, challenges and opportunities of using domestic pension funds to finance sustainable development goals.

The lack for investible projects is a binding constraint to make markets more inclusive and to mobilize at scale. Investible refers to projects, which are compliant with integrity and ESG standards that an investor would reasonably expect. A lot of the blended finance conversation has focused on financial de-risking. Other risks, such as sponsor, project or investment climate risk will remain. The session will focus on how blended finance can increase the universe of investible projects; it will review the experience of technical assistance facilities in project preparation and explore ways on how pipeline building can be improved and scaled.

Financial and investment flows to low-income countries present significant currency risks, which in turn inhibits finance and investments required to meaningfully narrow the SDG investment gap. Most debt investment is denominated in hard currency, exposing local borrowers and beneficiary countries to high currency risk and exposing investors to high credit risk. The majority of equity investment is denominated in local currency, exposing investors, who are interested in hard currency returns, to significant currency risk. The session will focus on experiences and solutions on innovative financing mechanisms reducing foreign currency risk and stimulating investment in developing countries.

This side event aims to build awareness on innovative financing mechanisms for sustainable ocean economies and provide an opportunity to discuss how to increase the scale and impact of investments for healthy and productive oceans. The discussion will build on the findings from the OECD Sustainable Ocean for All initiative, which provides a review of innovative financial instruments for the ocean. The event will also provide an opportunity to learn directly from countries and institutions that are at the forefront of developing and implementing these financial innovations and to hear perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of replicating them and scaling them up.

In this session, we will present a preliminary proposal for a common framework for measuring the impacts of business on well-being and sustainability. Building on the OECD’s Well-being Measurement Framework, originally aimed at policy makers and civil society, the framework is adapted to businesses at the firm level perspective. It uses the same concepts of dimensions of current well-being and resources for future well-being, based on the capital approach. This preliminary proposal also links with SDGs and the Business for Inclusive Growth platform, and identifies six groups of impact.

After four decades of discussions on corporate social responsibility (CSR), new regulations in India have made CSR into a public policy: the Indian Companies Act of 2013 mandates Indian corporations to fund areas that are crucial for the development – beyond their core business. After 6 years of this regulation, the panel will unpack the priorities of domestic philanthropy and CSR in India building upon the recent report by the OECD Centre on Philanthropy and insights from the members of the OECD Network of Foundations Working for Development (netFWD) and the OECD Emerging Markets Network (EMnet).

Private sector insurance products and services allow private finance to flow to underserved sectors and regions. Typically, private sector actors are unable to invest in developing countries because of expected risk-return mismatches. Insurance allows balancing the risk-return relationship. This Expert Discussion will benefit from a Background paper prepared by AON and the OECD which examines the insurance industry’s expertise in risk management and mitigation within the wider network of organisations (humanitarian) operating in this space, and the untapped potential of the industry in bringing scale to current activity.

With over 2 billion people lacking access to safely managed drinking water and 4.5 billion lacking access to safely managed sanitation, the annual economic losses due to inadequate water supply and sanitation are significant -- estimated at USD 260 billion. Despite progress, blended finance has not yet gained sufficient traction for water-related investments. This session will inform participants of the findings on emerging solutions and models of blended finance for water-related investments and foster discussion around the next steps to apply the lessons to scale up practical action.

In 2017, members of the Development Assistance Committee have officially adopted Blended Finance Principles for Unlocking Commercial Finance for the SDGs. The OECD Development Co-operation Directorate is currently preparing further policy guidance to support their implementation. At the PF4SD Conference, DAC members and Blended Finance stakeholders are invited to share their views on the future guidance for Principle 5: Monitor blended finance for transparency and results. The discussion will benefit from interventions by: • The Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank, that will share findings and reflections from a recently completed evaluation of IFC’s Blended Finance Operations. • The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, that will relate evidence on the use of Private Sector instruments (PSI) as part of the Evaluation of the Dutch government's policy on international responsible business conduct (2012-2018). • The Swedish Expert Group for Aid Studies (EBA), who will present a recent study on mobilising private development finance, focusing on transparency in PSI spending, the use of PSI for specific demographic groups and providers’ approach to ex ante option appraisal.

Two major themes of the 2018 PF4SD Week was that although blended finance has demonstrated itself to be an effective development tool, it is not yet achieving scale and not flowing to low-income countries sufficiently. Convergence’s database identifies the median blended finance project at $60 million relative to a $2.5 trillion SDG Investment Gap. DIFD, the THK Mobilisation Working Group, the OECD and Convergence have responded to create a Working Group, under DFID leadership, of development-focused organizations prepared to commit capital to blended finance projects at below-market risk-returns to mobilise investment to the SDGS – to achieve development impact and mobilize investment at scale.

Can blended finance be used in disruptive ways to help create or strengthen markets for more and better finance to agri-SMEs? This session will look at a series of recent experiences that suggest that this may be the case. While many blended finance solutions in the agri-SME space are successful in mobilizing specific amounts of finance, they are rarely if ever designed to have positive impact on the markets in which they operate.

The investment needed to achieve the SDGs are massive – and ODA and countries can’t achieve this alone. Innovative financial instruments are ways to attract new forms of capital towards sustainable development. This session aims to innovative financial instruments and how they have been used in development and humanitarian contexts, through cases and examples.

Following the OECD Blockchain Policy Forum 2019, the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD) drafted a paper titled: “Can Blockchain Technology help reduce the costs of remittances?’’. The paper reflects diverse perspectives on the intersection of blockchain technology and remittances. The session intends to discuss key elements of the paper and to identify missing research gaps that could potentially be explored further for enabling a favourable ecosystem that promotes the secure and responsible deployment of digital financial services, in particular, blockchain technology and effective development co-operation.

This session will explore how to enhance the business and investment impact on the SDGs through the theme of aligning incentives, bringing together representatives from firms with policymakers from the investment and development cooperation communities. The session will look at three interrelated topics: what drives firm behaviour in developing countries, how donors can help support an environment conducive to good business behaviour in developing countries and how policymakers can build a regulatory environment to attract SDG-aligned investment.