Building the Middle: Global Cooperation at the Frontier: Innovative Finance in Fragile Contexts

Few people consider fragile, conflict-affected contexts as places brimming with business opportunities, but InterAction’s recent report, “Building the Middle: Global Cooperation at the Frontier: Innovative Finance in Fragile Contexts,” highlights what’s possible.

This report analyzes insights from 18 executives from both for-profit firms and nonprofit organizations that participated in a retreat held by InterAction and The Annenberg Trust at Sunnylands in November 2018.

In addition to outlining a set of emerging principles and recommendations for do-no-harm investments in fragile contexts, the report grapples with a number of keys issues including:  

• Ways in which the private and the public sectors can reinforce one another for better governance and business opportunities in fragile contexts
• Exploration of the barriers that private firms face to enter fragile contexts and the challenge of scaling
• Proposal for a multi-sector, networked approach to tackle this challenge that draws on the comparative advantages of different actors, including NGOs, advisory firms, and investment firms
• How to improve the case for investing in seemingly risky environments
• Market failures as missed opportunities in fragile contexts
• Sharpening domestic resource mobilization and broader policy vis-à-vis private investment in fragile contexts
• Success stories in financing and scaling in fragile contexts
• Data-driven decision-making for investing
• Countering predatory private investment in fragile contexts

Read the report

The following are the executives who participated in the retreat. The views expressed in this report are not necessarily representative of the following people or organizations:

• Alix Zwane, CEO, Global Innovation Fund
• Beth de Hamel, CFO, Mercy Corps
• Charles Eberly, Global Head of Coverage, CrossBoundary
• Mamie Kalonda, CEO, FINCA Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Daniel Kaufmann, President and CEO, Natural Resource Governance Institute
• Tayyaba Rasheed, Head of Investment Banking, Faysal Bank Limited Pakistan
• Raymond Asfour, CEO, Expectation State
• Matthew Bishop, Managing Director, Rockefeller Foundation
• Sheba Crocker, Vice President for Humanitarian Programs & Policy, CARE USA
• Nancy Lindborg, President, United States Institute of Peace
• Jonathan Papoulidis, Executive Advisor for Fragile States, World Vision
• Bobby Pittman, Managing Partner, Kupanda Capital
• Alex Thier, President, ODI
• Lisa Carty, Director, Humanitarian Financing & Resource Mobilization, UN OCHA
• Sam Worthington, CEO, InterAction
• David Lane, President,Sunnylands
• Noam Unger, Vice President of Global Development, Policy, and Learning, InterAction
• Rob Fallon, Director of External Relations, Sunnylands