The Bill & Melinda Gates, Open Society, and Rockefeller foundations have announced ODI and Publish What You Fund as the first two projects to be supported by the Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) Challenge Fund.

Launched in October 2022 with initial commitments totaling $5.25 million and administered by New Venture Fund, the fund is aimed at accelerating MDB lending in low- and middle-income countries for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Climate Agreement. ODI will use its grant to increase understanding of callable capital—an international treaty commitment by member government shareholders to supply additional resources if an MDB faces severe financial problems and cannot pay off its bondholders—and how to better integrate it into capital adequacy frameworks. Publish What You Fund aims to develop an improved mobilization reporting approach for development finance institutions that will increase understanding of what works to mobilize private investment. Additional grant recipients will be announced in the coming weeks.

“Our project is designed to generate evidence that can help government shareholders, MDB management, and credit rating agencies better understand the financial strength and lending capacity of MDBs and take decisions accordingly,” said Chris Humphrey, senior research associate at ODI and senior scientist at ETH Center for Development and Cooperation. “Making the best use of callable capital is a key part of modernizing the financial operations of MDBs to face the challenges of the coming decades.”

“Improving the measurement of mobilization is vital if we want to learn about what works and how when crowding private capital into development finance deals,” said Publish What You Fund CEO Gary Forster.

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