Giving Compass' Take:

• Devex reports on a task force of leaders from governments, NGOs and the private sector getting together to mobilize capital and promote sustainability through blended finance. Basically it's a social economic super team.

• Are the goals being set by this "task force" too lofty — or will it motivate impact investors to step up their game in the coming years? Scaling will be everything.

• If you're new to the world of blended finance, check this out.

A new blended finance action plan calls on multilateral development banks to step up their efforts to leverage private capital. It also lays out a series of eight key initiatives that can help to accelerate blended finance and raise more funds to address the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The action plan was released recently by the Blended Finance Task Force, a group of leaders from the private sector, governments, multilateral institutions, and nongovernmental organizations. It took center stage at a Thursday meeting at the International Finance Corporation, where task force members and others discussed barriers to scaling blended finance and how to use the new plan as a guide to address some of those challenges.

“The idea of this task force is frankly to drive to action as much as possible,” said Jeremy Oppenheim, the chair of the Blended Finance Task Force and the founder SYSTEMIQ. “A whole set of actions need to be put in place, central to this are two things, getting MDBs and DFIs [development finance institutions] to put more weight on their role in mobilizing private capital into developing countries and see that as absolutely central to their mandate. [But] it’s not just about the public sector changing the way of working, it’s also about the private sector.”

The eight initiatives include: MDBs and DFIs setting higher targets for how their money will mobilize private capital; institutional investors and asset managers committing to investing more in sustainable infrastructure; tackling regulatory disincentives; improving access to data; developing and scaling blended finance vehicles and instruments; increasing intermediaries to help develop projects; increasing investment in key areas including sustainable land use and resilient cities; and building local capacity in developing countries to help create blended finance deals.

Read the full article about the blended finance task force by Adva Saldinger at Devex International Development.