On 15 and 16 October 2025, the industry-led EMDE Investor Taskforce convened by UK Government Ministers and supported by IIGCC as secretariat, hosted two high-level events in Washington, D.C. alongside the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings.
The first event at the Rockefeller Foundation, hosted in collaboration with Ninety One, Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), and Investor Leadership Network, focused on the development and scaling of investment products for emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs).
Bringing together senior government officials, MDB leaders, global investors, and credit rating agencies, the room heard from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Baroness Chapman, as well as practitioner views on recent successful blended finance structures and related insurer constraints, credit rating considerations, as well as scaling of MDB originate-to-distribute efforts like securitisations and co-financing.
The second event, hosted by The Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), GFANZ and OECD, explored data as an enabler of EMDE investment. Discussions highlighted the pioneering work led by GEMs and outlined key priorities for advancing data availability (including consolidating data from GEMs and other sources), quality, and usability to support investor allocations and decision-making – be it for Defined Benefit or Defined Contribution types of capital.
AGENDA
Unlocking Private Capital for EMDEs from Barriers to Solutions
Opening remarks from Baroness Chapman, UK Minister of State for International Development
Followed by panel discussion: Mobilising institutional investors in EMDEs
Moderator: Eric Pelofsky, The Rockefeller Foundation, Vice President
Panellists:
- Dr Sidi Ould Tah, President, African Development Bank Group
- James Scriven, CEO, IDB Invest
- Greg Guyett, First Vice President and Head of Client Services Group, European Bank of Reconstruction and Development,
- Mahmoud Mohieldin, Chair of Advisory Board of GFANZ Africa Network, UN Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda
- Hendrik du Toit, CEO, Ninety One, EMDE Investor Taskforce industry chair
Scene setting for the following sessions:
- Anand Rajagopal, Sustainability Research Lead, Phoenix Group and Taskforce “Products” Co-Chair
Insurers as investors in EM infrastructure – constraints and solutions
Moderator: Nazmeera Moola, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ninety One
Lead discussants:
- Nuwan Goonetilleke, Head of Capital Markets, Phoenix Group
- Andrew Harris, Managing Director, SunLife
- Nadia Nikolova, CEO, responsAbility
- Paulo Martelli, CIO, FinDev Canada
Credit ratings for project finance and blended finance structures
Moderator: Umberto Marengo, Director, Capital Mobilisation & Blended
Finance, GFANZ
Lead discussants:
- Natalia Repassi Dias Melo, Managaing Director, IDB Invest
- Matt Kaczmarek, Managing Director, Head of Emerging Market Credit Strategy for Global Infrastructure Partners, BlackRock
- Lapo Guadagnuolo, Managing Director, S&P
- Daniela Faria, Project Coordinator – Sustainable Finance, Brazil Ministry of Finance
Scaling MDB originate-to-distribute (OTD) / originate-to-share (OTS) structures, including securitisations and co-lending
Moderator: Anand Rajagopal, Sustainability Research Lead, Phoenix Group
Lead discussants:
- Jozef Henriquez, Managing Director of Mobilization & Asset Sharing, IDB Invest
- Amit Roy, Vice President (Executive Director), Goldman Sachs
- Kevin Njiraini, Director of Syndicated Loans & Mobilization, IFC
- Amer Baig, Director, Department of Strategic Investment Partnerships and Co-Investments, Green Climate Fund
Wrap-up and conclusions: key take-aways and next steps
- Nazmeera Moola, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ninety One
Accelerating Progress on Building the Data Toolkit for Private Capital Mobilisation in EMDEs
The need to accelerate private capital flows for EMDEs is well-acknowledged, as are the myriad barriers to further progress. The urgency to do so is growing, given that EMDEs account for over 70% of global CO2 emissions.
Elevated perceptions of investment risk in EMDE are a major barrier. These are exacerbated by a lack of data that could help substantiate the case for investing in EMDE assets in the eyes of asset owners such as pension funds. This is particularly the case in private markets. Asset owners may have allocation to EM public markets with market cap benchmark serving as a reference point, and are serviced with many data platforms/vendors with regard to financial and non-financial data. This is not the case in private markets.
This session brings together stakeholders involved in the GEMs database, the Hamburg Data Alliance and the EMDE Taskforce – all of whom are involved in the quest to unlock more data. We will hear from key individuals involved in these initiatives, who will describe their work to
date, then we will discuss how we learn from and leverage each other’s work to accelerate
progress and deliver positive change.
Key questions are:
- How might we best respond to the need for high-level data that can better position EMDE
as an investable asset class in the eyes of asset owners? - How can we go about motivating and incentivising the sharing of more data, and through what channels?