Blended finance in the EU-Africa partnership. A panacea for bridging the investment gap?

How to mobilize sufficient funding for the SDGs implementation is a key question for international donors. The EU is no exception and has developed several blended finance instruments to bridge the SDG financing gap. The External Investment Plan (EIP) set up in 2017 is its most prominent flagship initiative. Blending uses public funds to partly finance development projects with private (and public) investors covering the rest.

Boosting investment and involving the private sector also feature prominently in the EU Africa strategy published in March 2020. However, given the high number of LDCs on the continent the potential of blended finance and the impact on development remain questionable.

With our speakers from the ODI and the KfW we will discuss concrete examples of blended finance. What are the possibilities and limits of blended finance instruments such as the EIP in international development cooperation? What does a shift towards blended finance mean for ODA with its focus on poverty eradication?

English-German interpretation will be provided.

We kindly ask you to registerby 19 April 2021