Giving Compass' Take:

• The Devex World conference will be happening in early June, where Devex's Adva Salinger will be discussing the importance of different funding models. Additionally, the conference should illuminate why we still need to understand how blended finance can be successful in global development.

• Who is the expert on which blended finance funding mechanism works the best in the global development sector? Experts in finance or experts in development?

• Learn about the challenges specifically with WASH funding and how they find ways to mitigate problems.

The development impact bond, the social impact bond, the climate bond, and blended finance are all relatively new financial instruments in the global development space, and together they are poised to help turn the billions into the trillions necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

But with these innovations already in play, is there a need for continued conversation around new funding models? Devex Associate Editor Adva Saldinger believes there is.

“While there’s growing rhetoric, there's still a lot of confusion around what some of these terms mean, what you need for a particular intervention, and how you might be able to finance it in a way that makes more sense,” she said.

Saldinger will be sitting down at Devex World on June 12 in Washington, D.C., to help turn these theories into action. We caught up with Saldinger to learn more before the event. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity:

What are the key challenges the global development community needs to overcome in terms of new funding models? 

Some of the models are really complicated to create — especially the first time around. There are pretty significant costs in terms of time, effort, and legalities in trying to structure some of these deals. Hopefully over time there will be more templates but for now, one of the key challenges is the upfront costs of trying to put these things together.

Why is Devex World the place where practitioners need to be to see this conversation advance?

Devex World brings these different players together in one place. It's an opportunity to help folks understand perspectives of people working in different fields and to really understand what's happening in the space — and to talk to some of the practitioners helping put these deals together and bridging some of those gaps.

Read the full article about funding models for aid work at Devex International Development