Global Blended Finance Alliance to Close the SDGs Finance Gap

Bali, BTNp: DURING Tri Hita Karana (THK) Forum, the Government of Indonesia launched the Global Blended Finance Alliance (GBF) with its partners including the Blended Finance Taskforce, the B-Team, GFANZ, UN SDSN, the Rockefeller Foundation and the United in Diversity Foundation.
This forum is the pre-eminent G-20 side event (15-17 Nov.) which attracted hundreds of leaders from business, finance, government, philanthropy and academia and helped catalyse over US$30 billion in projects, platforms and initiatives linked to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Minister Luhut said “This is why we are launching the GBF which will build capacity across governments, the private sector and philanthropy to do better blending. The GBF will be housed right here in Bali and we invite you all to partner with us. We don’t have time to lose if we are going to unlock trillions in investment each year for the planet. We need to do for the next generation, for our grandchildren.”
“The GBF was incubated by the THK Forum and will be key to unlocking finance for climate, nature, and people – scaling and replicating blended finance solutions, standardising transactions and sharing data to reduce transaction costs. This can unlock investment in climate action and the SDGs,” said Tantowi Yahya, Executive Lead THK Forum 2022 and Indonesia Roving Ambassador to the Pacific.
The GBF will be working with partners and friends to define its impact targets and strategy which will be announced at the World Bank / IMF Meetings in 2023.

Vice Chairman of the SUN Group, Uday Khemka said “We are facing an existential crisis which requires huge amounts of capital. That capital exists. The one thing required to unlock it is blended finance. For that reason, the Tri Hita Karana is the single most important meeting on climate in the last 30 years”.
The mission of the GBF is to strengthen and scale the blended finance market by replicating successfully blended structures, building capacity and tackling inefficiencies by:
· Develop term sheets for different blended finance structures/mechanisms
· Replicating & scaling blended finance transactions that already work
· Matchmaking between projects and capital providers
· Building a body of practice amongst regional/national DFIs in emerging markets
· Implementing training programmes for public, private & philanthropic stakeholders on how to blend
· Convening blended finance leaders to share learnings and push for innovation and reform.

Just not Moving Fast
Deputy of Economic Affairs National Development Planning Agency Republic of Indonesia, Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti said that the Alliance has been introduced into the G-20 Development Working Group as an initiative of the Government of Indonesia as one of the means to support policy goals of the G-20 Principles to Scale Up Blended Finance in Developing Countries, including Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States.

“We are moving, we’re just not moving fast enough. As the world’s leaders meet at G-20 this week, the aim should be to accelerate: putting climate action and climate finance at the heart of the agenda – not because it sounds nice at some moral level – but because it is the economic growth story of this decade and the decades to come. This is why the new Global Blended Finance Alliance is so important – it builds capacity and ensures information can flow to reduce the transaction costs of financing the SDGs and ultimately go faster,” said Paul Polman, business leader, co-author of Net Positive and THK Forum Steering Committee. *BTNewspaper