Mobilizing resources through peace-positive investments into local private sector

Aishat Raji, CFA, Associate Principal at CrossBoundary recently participated in a fireside chat hosted by the BMW Foundation on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference 2024.

Panelists included:

• Deike Potzel, Director-General for Crisis Prevention, Stabilisation, Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Assistance, German Federal Foreign Office
• Pierre Bardoux-Chesnau, Director, Nature Assets Team and Global Fund for Coral Reefs, United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)
• Anna Rosenberg, Head of Geopolitics, Amundi Investment Institute
• Elizabeth Spehar, Assistant Secretary-General, UN Peacekeeping Support Office Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs

The conference presented an opportunity to engage with global leaders, policymakers, experts, and practitioners in addressing pressing security challenges. The Munich Security Conference serves as a vital platform for fostering understanding, promoting conflict resolution, and enhancing international security cooperation through constructive dialogue and exchange of ideas.

The fireside chat delved into crucial questions aimed at mobilizing resources through peace-positive investments into the local private sector of fragile and conflict-affected areas. This brainstorming session shed light on strategies to mitigate investment risks and implement measures ensuring the peace-promoting impact of investments.

There’s no better time than now to invest in peace. Fragile and conflict economies offer investment opportunities, and still respond to economic incentives. De-risking investments is pivotal to attract private investors, as is prioritizing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) due to their economic significance in terms of contribution to GDP and employment.

Blended finance was also cited as a valuable tool for de-risking transactions in fragile markets. There is need for an honest —an investment facilitator acting as intermediaries between capital providers and capital seekers with the purpose of addressing barriers to investing such as asymmetric information and high transaction. This is the crux of the work we do at CrossBoundary – helping to improve investment readiness of deals in frontier markets, and unlock capital from diversified sources for commercial and impact outcomes.