From Promise to Performance: Reforming Blended Finance for Scale

A report by the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), supported by SIFI

Despite its growing profile, blended finance has yet to deliver at scale. Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs) remain underfunded, and systemic barriers continue to limit the mobilisation of private capital toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This new report from the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), developed with the support of the SDG Impact Finance Initiative (SIFI), identifies why and what can be done about it.

Drawing on 65 interviews with leading practitioners across the ecosystem, the report diagnoses the structural failures holding blended finance back. It offers a detailed roadmap to reform, focused on five key areas: transparency and standardisation, regulatory innovation, liquidity and exit options, project pipeline development, and adherence to additionality.

The report reframes blended finance not as a product, but as a system in need of reconfiguration, from incentive alignment and capital structuring to data infrastructure and regulatory norms. It outlines concrete reforms for key actors across the ecosystem, including governments, MDBs, DFIs, investors, and philanthropies. It also calls on Advanced Economies to integrate blended finance into the mandates of their public institutions and to reform prudential regulations that currently misprice risk in EMDEs.

If implemented, these changes could finally unlock the scale of private capital needed to bridge the SDG financing gap.

The full report is available for download here.

Read the Executive Summary below: