the mif blog

I recently marked 6 months as general manager of the MIF. Since I last updated you on our work, still more has happened, so it seems like a good time to share some of the latest developments with you.

At the beginning of this year, I had the privilege of becoming the General Manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund, and I recently returned from my first IDB Annual Meeting in the Bahamas. As I just passed the 100 day mark, it seems like a good time to take stock of what we have achieved together in that time, and to look ahead to the next steps.

Wall Street Daily estimated that in 2015, the sharing economy created 60,000 jobs in the United States and attracted a total of $15 billion in financing. Time magazine ranked it among the 10 ideas that will change the world, while PwC estimates that just five sectors of the collaborative economy could generate $335 billion in revenue for 2025. So if the sharing economy is here to stay, how it can affect the development of emerging economies?

A transformational movement is challenging the view that businesses exist primarily to maximize shareholder value. A growing number of businesses are keen to play a larger role in society, not simply by acting “responsibly,” but also by becoming a true “force for good.” They are harnessing the power of markets, entrepreneurship, and investment capital to tackle complex social problems in areas such as crime, education, health care, and clean energy.

It would be difficult to imagine a bigger sea change in thinking and practice about the private sector’s role in international economic development than what we’ve witnessed these past 12 months: from the financing-for-development conference in April that talked about moving from billions to trillions of dollars by crowding in private-sector financial resources, to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September, to the United Nations-led climate change negotiations (COP21) in Paris that concluded in December, and finally to conversations about the technology-driven 4th Industrial Revolution ‎at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.