ISDM’s “Bridging Perspectives: Innovative Finance Insights from India” Report Decodes Key Trends, Opportunities and Challenges for Innovative Financing
New Delhi : The Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), a leading organisation focussed on mainstreaming the domain of development management, launched its report titled “Bridging Perspectives: Innovative Finance Insights from India.” The report has been meticulously curated by ISDM’s Centre for Innovative Finance and Social Impact (CIFSI) and was presented at the Dialogues on Development Management (DoDM) convening, India’s pioneering conference on Management for Social Change.
Innovative financing has emerged as a critical tool for mobilising finance, driving societal change, and achieving sustainable development goals. In this regard, the report, based on extensive research and analysis, delivers valuable insights and a roadmap for future endeavours in the domain.
“This report is part of our ongoing knowledge creation efforts to establish and strengthen Development Management and its allied domains and throws light on innovative finance instruments implemented in India while simultaneously mapping trends in the innovative finance landscape. The present time is ripe for the civil society space to make bold strides in accessing and optimising innovative financing and frameworks to amplify social impact and its metrics. This report and the discussions that we have facilitated with partners and stakeholders today and will carry forward, are vital towards integrating social finance as a complement to government and philanthropic spending, to provide the catalytic capital required to bridge the SDG gap in India and globally,” said Ravi Sreedharan, Co-Founder and President, ISDM.
India is facing a significant funding deficit of $94 billion to achieve the SDG goals in 2022, which is further expected to increase to $152 billion by 2027. This indicates that philanthropy and public funding alone cannot drive the financing of SDGs. This creates the need to explore innovative and alternative financing models and instruments to finance the social sector, with focus on chaneling funds from the private sector to the social sector, and create social impact.
Topline Trends of Innovative Finance Landscape
a. Growth of innovative finance can be attributed to various factors such as increased interest from donors to make their investments more effective, and evolving markets which demonstrate opportunities for creating social impact with the success stories.
b. There is now greater emphasis on achieving favourable financial returns, which raises important questions about the balance between financial returns and social returns by investing in the social sector.
c. The preference for specific instruments is guided by the simplicity of the instrument and familiarity of the investors with it. While complex instruments like impact bonds have been experimented with, their adoption remains low due to their complex nature, high costs and time-consuming nature.