Impact investment in the context of a global Europe: mobilizing the European private sector

The global estimation of the annual financial gap for financing sustainable development has increased from USD 2.5 trillion to USD 4 trillion in recent years due to the effects of the COVID crisis. The level of investment needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda clearly exceeds public budgets, tax revenues and official development assistance. For this reason, the private sector is called upon to be a key player in development as a partner of traditional Donors and Financial Institutions, gradually moving from a donation logic to one of financing.

In this context, the European Union is stepping up its efforts with large investments in infrastructure development around the world. Between 2021 and 2027, Team Europe (the EU institutions and EU Member States together), have the objective of mobilizing up to 300,000 million euros of investment. European public budgets will not be able to provide this enormous amount of financial resources, but it will only be possible together with private financing.

In this sense, Impact Investment is a great opportunity for Europe to make its commitment a reality in collaboration with all partners and will therefore be key in the coming years.

The Spanish Cooperation for international development has endorsed Impact Investment as part of the set of tools needed to achieve the SDGs and great activity is being deployed in the identification and evaluation of investment opportunities, both through national and international managers, with success stories that have been recognized by the OECD among its good practice manuals.

Therefore, in the framework of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU during the second semester of 2023, Spain has organized this Conference, in partnership with the National Advisory Board for Impact Investment (SpainNAB), to take stock of the achievements so far and place impact investment at the forefront of the agenda of European public and private financiers.

The conference will gather relevant stakeholders active in Impact Investment: from heads of bilateral Development Banks and Multilateral Financial Institutions to representatives of Investment Funds, Civil Society, Impact Investment Networks and Associations, among others.

This 2-day conference will highlight the opportunities for Impact Investment and the key factors to ensure sustainable impact from the view of different actors based on their expertise.

PROGRAMME