WEBVTT

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Almost all forms of capital are inflexible—

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public and private.

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If we can construct a system within
which family offices act together but act fast

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and innovate,
then I think we really have a chance to

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build something consequential.

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Ahmed, thank you very much
for joining us today.

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It's great to be with you.

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So in all of our work around trying to
scale blended finance and identifying solutions,

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one of the challenges that
always comes up is

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some of the inflexibility in some
of the current forms of catalytic capital.

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Many are calling for new forms,
including from private actors.

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What role do you think the private sector
has in playing in the scalability issue?

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I think one of the challenges we really
have is that almost all forms of capital

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I think one of the challenges we really
have is that almost all forms of capital

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are inflexible—public and private.

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are inflexible—public and private.

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And they're regulated,

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they're run in large organizations and
institutions.

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But if we think about the set of problems
that we're focused on,

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including sustainability and impact in
the developing world,

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there's three categories that really
matter.

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One is the public sector actors,
who have a responsibility for all of us

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and for long-term outcomes.

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The second is the set of investors who by
mandate must look forward

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40, 50, 60 years—a pension fund that has to meet
pension liabilities.

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And then you have this other category.

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And the other category—family offices—

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while large on an individual basis
is actually quite small

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compared to the other categories.

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But it does have one attribute that the
others lack,

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and that attribute is flexibility, speed,
nimbleness, and focus.

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And so if we can construct a system
within which family offices act together,

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but act fast and innovate and create
things and partner with these agents of scale,

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then I think we really have a chance to
build something consequential.

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Many of these family offices
may be subscale.

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And one of the other challenges that has
come up is around larger pools.

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I mean,
is there a way that a family office or a

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family foundation can play an aggregator role?

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Well, I think almost by definition, the family office itself
will struggle to play an aggregator role,

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because it will be its initiative on
which it's trying to get others.

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The approach we've taken at Allied
Climate Partners, quite explicitly, Three Cairns Group

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decided to create a emerging
markets-focused,

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climate-focused, catalytic investment organization,

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philanthropic investment organization.

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But they also by design set it up outside,

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and they were the anchor investor but
invited others to also participate.

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We're trying to play a role as an
aggregator that brings more than one

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family office into a single umbrella so
that they can act together and at larger scale.

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And I'd say one of the key things that's
important about that is not just the scale,

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it's also that that creates an enhanced

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capacity to partner and to work with
other organizations.

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What are the types of organizations that
you're developing partnerships with?

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So we have a partnership with a broad
range of public sector and private sector organizations.

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On the public sector side,
ACP has formal MOUs,

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which we call "MO-do's" because at the
end of the day,

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we do things with the
World Bank Group and IFC;

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with the UK, French, and Dutch governments,
with their bilateral investment arms;

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with the government of Singapore,
both with the central bank, MAS,

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and with Temasek,
the sovereign wealth fund;

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and with the regional development banks
focused on Latin America and the

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Caribbean and in Africa.

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And in all of those cases,
those organizations have committed to

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seek to invest in the senior capital when
ACP invests in the junior capital.

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And in the case of the government of
Singapore,

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they also co-invest with us in the junior
capital.

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And that's an example, I think,
of a small, flexible organization—

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our balance sheet is a very,
very small fraction of the balance sheet

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of any one of the organizations I just
mentioned—being able to innovate and do things.

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But these agents of scale saying,
we like what you're doing and we'd like

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to participate.
And then allowing us to do more together.

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Ahmed,
thank you very much for joining us today.

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Thank you for having me.