Check Out the New Finance Wiki

The USAID Private Sector Engagement (PSE) Team is excited to launch the new Finance Wiki on Marketlinks. While access to finance has always been understood to be a key driver of economic growth, it is increasingly relevant as an essential element of the Journey to Self-Reliance and central both to Financing Self-Reliance and Private Sector Engagement.

At its root, finance is relatively simple—it is the process of pooling unused resources (capital) and deploying that capital to where it is needed and can be productive (for example, purchase of new technology or equipment). But it also can be highly complex—with a range of actors and a multitude of financial instruments, all of which operate within a financial infrastructure and shaped by an overall finance ecosystem.

We developed the Finance Wiki (in conjunction with our partner, Deloitte) to provide users with a source of information on the topic of development finance, help development practitioners better understand the elements or ecosystem which enable financial transactions, and (perhaps most importantly) become the go-to place for tools and resources available to catalyze more private finance in development. At its launch, the Finance Wiki includes overviews of both the barriers to finance and more than 50 finance interventions, as well as a number of associated resources, but it is designed to be an interactive platform to drive greater learning in the Marketlinks community. 

The Wiki was primarily developed for USAID staff and implementing partners, but it can be used by anyone looking to deepen their knowledge of development finance, particularly the constraints and possible interventions to mobilize finance for development outcomes.

We hope this Wiki will continue to grow and expand with contributions from practitioners like you! If you have a relevant resource, case study, or content that you would like to share, please submit it via this submission form. 

To find out more about the Finance Wiki and learn how to submit content, please join us for a Marketlinks webinar on April 28th, 2020. 

We would be remiss in not noting that this Wiki was the brainchild of three of the PSE Team’s own—Autumn Gorman who developed the concept and structure, and Beth Hain and Sashi Jayatileke, who championed it.