Why private finance for sustainable development is still bracing for impact

As its overseas assistance budget shrinks, Switzerland says it will rely more heavily on mobilising private capital to fund sustainable development in poorer countries. But the record on innovative mechanisms, such as “blended finance”, is mixed at best. In 2018, the site for Vietnam’s first industrial-sized solar power plant was 300 hectares of difficult-to-farm wasteland in the nation’s poorest province. Seven years later, with cash from Switzerland and a handful of other donors, the project is...