Dear Elisabeth, 

Thanks for your reply and yes it is a step until national mandated institutions can provided long term services through tariffs and taxes. 
It would be very interesting to know if anyone in the forum is working on a blended financing transaction in sanitation. 

I look forward to more input on this topic.

Thanks and best regards, Doreen

Hi Doreen,
Thanks for posting this. I learned something again: "blended finance" was a new term for me. In case it's new for others as well, let me share Wikipedia's definition of blended finance:

Blended finance ^[1]  is defined "as the strategic use of development  finance  and  philanthropic  funds to mobilize private capital flows to  emerging  and  frontier markets ", ^{[2] [3]}  resulting in positive results for both investors and communities. Blended finance offers the possibility to scale up commercial financing for  developing countries  and to channel such financing toward investments with development impact.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_finance

Towards the end the article says:

As sanitation practitioners increasingly get interested in blended finance, they should bear in mind this thought from Louis Boorstin of the Osprey Foundation: “Even the most creative of blended financing won’t go far without improving the sanitation sector’s fundamentals through stronger enterprises, clearer regulations, and innovative approaches.”

It will be interesting to track how much blended finance can achieve. Hopefully it is just a stop gap measure until local governments can provide proper sanitation via taxes and tariffs (in the longer term).

Is anyone on this forum working on a blended finance transaction in sanitation? 

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear Colleagues.

Below is an interesting article by Regina Rossmann working at Convergence titled "Fixing the financial plumbing to increase investments in sanitation"

"Water and sanitation receive much less blended finance than other sectors such as energy, financial inclusion, and agriculture. And, relative to water, sanitation projects are even less likely to mobilize blended finance. Looking across Convergence’s database, 70% of blended finance transactions in the sector have targeted water supply services, while only 11% have aimed at sanitation and wastewater. Several barriers need to be addressed to make way for the use of diverse financial instruments for sanitation:"

The article addresses the stumbling blocks to unlock urgently needed resources, the need to attract new actors to close the sanitation financing gap.

www.convergence.finance/news-and-events/...ptBHSuNEVTRZyql/view

Best regards, Doreen