Core concepts in blended finance: assessment of uses and implications for evaluation
Commissioned by the OECD, this paper presents findings from research on how blended finance actors use and define different key concepts, and what implications these understandings have for evaluators.
By increasing awareness of key terms and their use, this paper can contribute to facilitating the evaluation process, simplifying the communication of findings and results, and ease collaboration between different actors. It is divided into two parts. Part one outlines the research methodology including the key questions that guided the research. The secondsection presents the findings from this research. The analysis covers three blended finance related termsthat have multiple definitions with important implications for the evaluation process: 1) blended finance;2) concessionality and mobilisation; and 3) impact. Each section describes common uses and definitionsof the terms, and then explores how these differences affect the application of evaluation criteria andevaluation approaches. This paper is the first in a series of three working papers from the OECD/DAC EvalNet Working Group on Evaluating Blended Finance. The target audiences are bilateral donors, multilateral developmentbanks, development finance institutions,international financial institutions, impact innvestors, and private foundations interested in blended finance.
