Introducing our Project Advisory Board and Focus Areas

Our work to increase the transparency of development finance institutions (DFIs) is off to a great start; with the support of an expert group of advisors, we have selected the five key focus areas for our work over the next 2.5 years.

Rob Mosbacher, former CEO of OPIC, has chaired the first meeting of the Project Advisory Board that will guide the direction of our DFI Transparency Initiative. The voluntary Board composed of leading experts who represent a broad range of stakeholder groups to advise on the governance and strategic direction of the DFI Transparency Initiative.

When we launched the Initiative in December 2019 we said we were aiming to have our efforts be as collaborative as possible. In practise that means we’ve been in listening mode for the past two months.  We have been reaching out to a variety of stakeholders including DFIs, civil society organisations, think tanks, private investment firms and multilateral organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to hear their views on how we should shape this Initiative. We’ve certainly learned a lot through this process, and we want to continue to collaborate with others going forward.

The Project Advisory Board has the following members:

• Rob Mosbacher, Chair of Mosbacher Energy Company and former CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Chair of Project Advisory Board)
• Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen, Director of SDG Impact at United Nations Development Programme
• Paddy Carter, Director of Research and Policy at CDC Group UK
• Karin Finkelston, Vice President of Partnerships, Communications, and Outreach at International Finance Corporation
• Aubrey Hruby, Co-Founder of the Africa Expert Network (ZXN)
• George Ingram, Senior Fellow – Global Economy and Development at Brookings Institution
• Nancy Lee, Senior Policy Fellow at Center for Global Development
• Paul O’Brien, Vice President for Policy and Advocacy at Oxfam US
• Andrea Ordóñez, Director of Southern Voice

The Board held its first meeting at the end of February and its first task was to advise on the core areas on which the DFI Transparency Initiative should focus. Armed with research which our team has been compiling for the past few months, the Board met to deliberate not only the core focus areas, but also the sequencing of these over the life of the project.

After considering the valuable advice of the Board, we have decided to proceed with the following workstreams, understanding that as the work progresses we may need to adapt to opportunities and events and potentially amend the order and scope of various topics.

1. Basic Project Information
2. Objectives, Theories of Change and Impacts
3. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Accountability to Communities
4. Value of Investment: Concessionality, Mobilisation and Structure of Deal
5. Financial Intermediaries, Offshore Financial Centres and Beneficial Ownership

As far as collaboration goes, we don’t plan to stop at the Project Advisory Board. Firstly, we’re intending to build informal groups of experts to help with each workstream – we’ll be reaching out to folks soon but please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have a recommendation or want to put yourself forward. Secondly, our door is always open and we’re looking for as broad a spectrum of input as possible so please drop us a line should you have anything to contribute.

In the meantime, our team is already busy with workstream 1 and we’ll be sharing our progress in the coming months.