Conference Presentation, Panel
Galvanizing Global Growth: Lessons from Milken Institute Financial Innovations Labs
Milken InstituteCaitlin McLean, Carrie Stever, Craig Courtney, Alice Albright, David Ferreira, Larry Coben
- Global macroeconomic trends and growth are projected to be driven for decades by emerging and frontier markets, with Africa's labor force expected to become the world's largest by 2035.
- Drug-resistant tuberculosis is evolving into a harder-to-treat superbug with a rising patient count reported across 84 countries, including the US, all of Europe, and Japan, creating a perceived financing risk that modeling suggests may be overstated.
- The potential market for a tuberculosis vaccine is estimated at a 13 to 14 billion value over a 10-year period, requiring increased industry R&D investment in expensive phases and a more catalytic government role to de-risk pharmaceutical development.
- A new social impact fund combining private equity and debt, supported by anchor commitments from the CDC and the UK's DFID, aims for a first close by the end of the current year or early next year to address child stunting, crop yields, and small farmer livelihoods.
- Investment returns from previous sub-Saharan African and South Asian projects have generated high single-digit to lower low double-digit yields, informing the outlook for recycling private capital to solve food security sustainably.
- Education funding for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is projected to increase from $350 to $400 million annually, potentially scaled through innovative mechanisms like "Product Red" ideas or Financial Transaction Taxes.
- Gavi targeted raising a matching fund of $260 million and vaccinating 1 million girls against HPV by the end of 2015, with a longer-term goal of 30 million vaccinations by 2020.
- Innovative finance is shifting from grant-based models toward investable solutions such as guarantee facilities and procurement structures, with results-based instruments proposed where principal or coupon forgiveness depends on achieving specific health outcomes.
- The Canadian Export Credit Agency is cited as a model for integrating government and private sector approaches, while the Gavi Matching Fund aims to introduce core business skills beyond mere capital.
- Domestic pension funds in developing countries represent a significant, untapped source of capital for impact investing, accessible through partnerships with organizations like the IFC.
- The Sustainable Preservation Initiative plans to scale from ten pilot projects to one hundred the following year if successful, potentially adding water purification machines and proposing "common asset banks" involving eco-tourism and cultural heritage.
- GAIN intends to expand its procurement credit facility into a $90 million nutrition credit fund and create an investable index product based on the Access to Nutrition Index once a larger company cohort is established.
- Concerns exist regarding government policy and budgeting cycles operating at glacial speeds decades behind global realities, as well as short-term outcome metrics that may limit innovation within government-funded agencies.