On November 15, 2024, FINCA held its inaugural meeting of a multi-part series with international leaders in inclusive finance to address systemic challenges and develop innovative solutions to ending poverty.
Report Summary
We are seeing significant global progress in sectors such as industry, infrastructure, and technology, as well as health and education, particularly in wealthier countries. Significant large-scale investments and corporate alignment have fueled advancements in these areas, led largely by government and multilateral institutions.
Conversely, the world has gone backward in recent years when it comes to extreme hunger and economic disparity, particularly in the most vulnerable countries. These shifts are rooted in multiple factors: lack of economic opportunity, political instability, rising world food prices, climate events, and structural disadvantages. In turn, these trends are creating new pressures around the world in the form of migration, political radicalization, and increasing global tensions.
It should not be surprising that problems like these are difficult to address — they do not lend themselves easily to large-scale infrastructure or industrial projects. Traditional approaches to capital allocation work best when the outcomes are easily quantified, the amounts are significant and returns are high, and the complexity and cost of legal and regulatory assessments, risk management, and higher profits can offset the expense of financial structuring.
Over the last 40 years, FINCA and our global partners — including the public sector, private sector, and nonprofit organizations working to end poverty — have been operating under the traditional capital allocation approach. While there have been some notable successes, we find this strategy has not proven suitable for rapidly unlocking the volume and speed of capital investments needed to foster responsible and sustainable global economic participation.
It is therefore with a shared sense of urgency and open-mindedness that we decided to join forces in late 2024, hosting the inaugural meeting of a multi-part series with international leaders in inclusive finance to think through what is working and what could be done differently to accelerate impact.
