India is a resourceful country
India is a resourceful country
India has resources, intellectual capital and entrepreneurial spirit more than any other country in the world to successfully collaborate the public sector activities with the private sector to achieve better developmental results,” said Peter Vanderwal, Growth and Innovative Development Financing Lead at Palladium while speaking on the second day of Delivering Change Forum (DCF) 2017 here on Wednesday.
Palladium is pioneering the use of impact bonds for scaling successful initiatives using private risk capital.
Vanderwal has spent the past two years bridging the gap between development assistance and private capital. He leads Palladium’s impact bond initiatives, designing innovative development financing mechanisms using the blended capital to achieve a sustainable positive impact. These mechanisms demand collaboration between the public, private and donor sectors and provide a concrete structure for private capital to work towards the public good, aligning incentives and demanding a rigorous focus on results.
Private firms are required to utilise two per cent of their profit as a part of the corporate social responsibility. However, the impact value of the initiatives isn’t always guaranteed. Hence, what is necessary is developing a mechanism to ensure a maximum positive impact of the initiatives by the private sector and Palladium has devised a strategy, ‘development impact bond’ just to do the same.
Speaking about Palladium’s initiative in Rajasthan, Vanderwal explained how private sector was brought into the picture to ensure better medical facilities in the state that has the highest maternal and infant mortality rate in the country. He said, “I am glad to state that institutional deliveries have increased in the state, leading to a fall in the maternal mortality rates to an extent. To ensure the quality of the private sector firms, we implemented an accreditation system. Targets were given and the investor returns were aligned to the achievement outcomes.”