To boost its development cooperation and to fill funding gaps, the European Union is increasingly resorting to “blending”. While using tax payer-funded aid to encourage the engagement of private companies and investors in development can be helpful in certain cases, new Oxfam research has confirmed that private money is not a magical tool to end poverty. The EU should therefore ensure its private-sector initiatives don’t come at the detriment of continued public investment that has proven to achieve concrete, positive results, writes Hanna Saarinen, Oxfam’s EU policy advisor on investment in agriculture.

Posted by Oxfam International EU Advocacy