Moonshots for Development Alliance: Our Quest for Better Innovation Financing

The Moonshots for Development Alliance (M4D) took flight at the onset of COVID-19 as a dynamic working group of representatives from the innovation arms and labs within International Finance Institutions and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). It is designed to address the longstanding issue of the fragmented, siloed approach to investing in rural development innovation, recognizing that no single organization can solve complex global challenges in isolation. The Alliance comprises the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Innovation Lab of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB Lab), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Space Agency (ESA), the Innovation Accelerator of the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Bank Group, and others.

M4Ds mission is to work collectively to launch ambitious and feasible ideas to solve global development challenges through open innovation. It seeks to harness the “multiplier effect” of open innovation collaboration by identifying, testing, and scaling transformative technologies and solutions, with a strong emphasis on supporting vulnerable rural communities globally. One such idea is to design and test a rural financing facility that streamlines efforts of IFIs to address rural development challenges, utilizing the shared resources, expertise, and perspective of the Alliance.

This session will introduce the Moonshots for Development Alliance as a model collaboration for transformative action and will explore the gaps and obstacles to developing an innovation financing facility of this size and scope. Audience members will be invited to contribute to the shared understanding of the policy and operating landscapes that the facility will eventually navigate and consider the potential impact of reaching rural communities with innovative financing options.

(Note that we are in conversations with our speakers from IFAD and the Asian Development Bank, but haven’t confirmed their participation yet as they are still determining their availability, but we are in close touch)