UK launches Coalition to champion using public markets for development finance
July 1, 2025, Seville, Spain. The United Kingdom (UK), partnering with the Government of the Philippines and others, is championing the use of public markets to mobilise development and climate finance at the scale needed to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The UK has announced the launch of a new Sevilla Platform for Action (SPA) initiative on ‘Public Markets Mobilisation for Development’, which will establish the ‘EMDE Public Markets Coalition’. This Coalition will develop a toolkit for MDBs, DFIs, and investors to support them in facilitating greater investment in EMDEs through public markets.
The Rt Hon Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State – International Development, Latin America and Caribbean, announced the SPA initiative and Coalition during a High-level side event at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4), taking place in Seville this week. The UK co-hosted the event with the Government of the Philippines to highlight the significant yet untapped potential of public debt and equity markets to mobilise capital towards development finance in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs).
In 2024, more than $255 trillion in capital was channelled through public markets worldwide. This is roughly 20 times the value of investments made in private markets, where most development finance transactions currently take place, and 100 times the total capital on MDB balance sheets. Yet only a fraction of capital invested through public markets is allocated to emerging markets, where the SDG financing gap is most urgent.
Minister for Development Baroness Chapman said: “We need to see a transformation in how the public and private sectors work together to mobilise capital to power development progress.
“Only a fraction of the money passing through public markets each year currently goes to emerging and developing markets. Even a small shift in the way this money is invested could unlock massive change and new opportunities for investors, ensuring more countries, communities, and businesses have the finance they need to solve the most difficult development challenges.”
The ‘Public Markets Mobilisation for Development’ SPA initiative will be co-implemented by the Government of Norway and the African Development Bank (AfDB). It has also received endorsement from the Governments of the Philippines, Switzerland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), British International Investment (BII) and the Centre for Development Finance Studies (CDFS).
The Coalition aims to convene governments, MDBs, DFIs, investors and public markets actors, including stock exchanges and regulators, to develop a Toolkit in the 12 months following FFD4. The Toolkit will provide guidance to support MDBs and DFIs, as well as investors, to support more investors to invest in climate and development through EMDE public markets and to replicate and scale these transactions.
Undersecretary Joven Balbosa, Department of Finance, Government of the Philippines, said: “The Philippines is proud to continue our partnership with the UK to mobilise private and public finance toward sustainable development and climate action. Public markets are powerful vehicles for mobilisation, with both equity and debt financing proving crucial in meeting climate and development targets in EMDEs. The real opportunity lies in working together—government, regulators, investors, exchanges, and development finance institutions—to reframe public markets in EMDEs not as peripheral, but as central to financing climate and development ambitions.”
Hege Haaland, Director General, Department for Sustainable Development – Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Norway, said: “FFD4 is a crucial opportunity to recognise not just the urgency of the SDG financing gap, but also the importance of exploring new solutions to address it. As co-implementors of the ‘Public Markets Mobilisation for Development’ SPA Initiative and through our support for the MOBILIST programme, Norway continues our longstanding partnership with the UK to look to public markets as a powerful potential tool to mobilise development finance at scale.”
As an example of UK leadership on public markets, the UK’s MOBILIST programme, supported by the Governments of Norway and Switzerland, provides catalytic equity investment on commercial terms to support companies and projects in EMDEs to list publicly. This, in turn, supports investment from a broader group of institutional investors and development outcomes. The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) will extend its current support to MOBILIST by providing an additional NOK 40 million in technical assistance funding to the programme over the next three years.
Watch a video screen during the announcement to explain the potential of public markets for capital mobilisation here or on YouTube: