Blended Finance Approaches and Tools to Support Women and Girls

The project seeks to strengthen evidence about how approaches tools and mechanisms can be used to mobilize additional private and public sector financing -- referred to as blended finance -- for development that supports women and girls’ empowerment. Project activities include: (1) examining policies and approaches used by low- and lower-middle-income countries international financial institutions and donors with a focus on increasing the economic opportunities for the poor particularly women; (2) highlighting blended finance approaches and design mechanisms which create or are likely to create increased financing that supports women’s economic empowerment including their access to finance and business development services as well as entrepreneurship training and business ownership; and (3) identifying opportunities to include women as leaders experts and policy makers on development finance issues in order to bring new voices from low- and lower-middle-income countries into the dialogue and decision-making process.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased exposure to economic research and policy recommendations to mobilize larger amounts of sustainable development finance to reduce poverty among women and girls; (2) new fora are created for key public and private actors to build workable solutions to mobilize more finance for traditionally excluded firms and populations particularly women-owned firms and women; and (3) increased understanding of how multilateral development banks and development finance institutions should use concessional finance to maximize development impact on poor women and girls.