CrossBoundary Group

Investment Facilitation: A new tool for economic development

In 2013 we collaborated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to suggest a new approach to attracting private investment into overlooked and underserved economies.

Connecting Investment and Economic Development Best Practice

COVID-19 is causing countries in Africa and other parts of the developing world to face multiple overlapping crises: the pandemic itself, a wider health crisis, a food security crisis and an economic crisis that is further exacerbated by low commodity prices and a decline in global travel and trade as well as financial flows.

Investment Facilitation Revisited

Investment Facilitation in Transitional and Fragile States

This paper outlines a new tool for policymakers to deploy to encourage private-sector development in developing nations. Specifically it argues that in fragile states there are systemic failures that cause an intermediation gap between sources of capital and entrepreneurs seeking investment. This gap prevents investment by raising transaction costs and exacerbating information asymmetry.

What the world’s largest EM credit dataset reveals about real risk in emerging markets

Information, trust, and capital: Insights from Africa Media Festival 2026

The Africa Media Festival 2026 convened journalists, technologists, and creators to ask what it takes to keep credible information alive under pressure. Framed around the theme “Resilient Storytelling: Reimagining Media Freedom,” the conversations extended well beyond journalism, exploring how information is produced, controlled, and sustained in complex environments.

Getting incentive design right: Lessons from a gender-smart financing pilot for energy access

According to FAO, three in four working women in Sub-Saharan Africa earn their livelihoods through agriculture and food systems. They are also the primary users of energy in the home. Despite this, women remain the least likely to own the productive assets that could change their economic trajectory, largely because financing mechanisms meant to expand energy access are not designed with them in mind. In fact, research by Shell Foundation found that less than 10% of results-based financing funding explicitly targets women.

First In, Many Follow: How Foundations are Anchoring the Next Wave of Blended Finance

May 2025: A closed-door session brings together top-tier philanthropies, investment banks, advisors, and commercial investors to discuss a shared reality—declining official development assistance (ODA) and the growing need for more capital, both commercial and catalytic, to flow into impact sectors.

Inside CrossBoundary’s Kenya Internship Program: Learning, growth, and impact

CrossBoundary’s internship program is built around a simple idea: people learn fastest when they work on real problems that matter. Interns are embedded directly into teams and contribute to projects with real stakes, not busy work.

CrossBoundary Group named to the ImpactAssets 50 2026 Impact Fund Manager showcase

What we give, we grow: women in Ghana’s agricultural economy

On International Women's Day 2026, BRIDGE-in Agriculture celebrates the women who received a hand — and immediately extended one to others. Meet Juliana, Yvette, and Gloria: three Ghanaian women whose businesses are growing, and whose first instinct has been to bring others along with them.

What the World Bank’s Country Partnership Framework (CPF) Consultations revealed about unlocking private capital in Nigeria

At the World Bank Group's private sector consultations in Lagos, over 100 leaders from across agriculture, energy, finance, manufacturing, healthcare, education, and the creative industries came together to shape Nigeria's 2026–2032 Country Partnership Framework (CPF), focusing on a central question: what will it take to drive private sector-led job creation at scale over the next five to six years?

Why the Balkans is Ripe for an Impact Fund

This article was originally published under the title "Unlocking Impact at the Crossroads: Why the Balkans is Ripe for an Impact Fund", as a part of a closed door convening on the Balkans moderated by CrossBoundary on the current investment landscape in the Balkans, focusing on the policy, funding, and ecosystem gaps that limit the region's impact potential.

Bridging Continents Workshop at COP30: Scaling Mini-Grid Solutions from Africa to the Americas