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What does it take to move impact investing from individual transactions to a system?  And what does that mean for the field when the global development finance landscape shifts so dramatically in such a short period of time? 

In this episode, Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen traces a career that begins in the corridors of Washington political power and ends up in Khartoum during a military coup, and later in refugee camps on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border — before running through twenty years at the Inter-American Development Bank, the UNDP's SDG Impact Standards, and the US Development Finance Corporation under the Biden administration.

She breaks down what everyone gets wrong about impact investing — that it's about a transaction, a fund, a project, when it's really about building a system — and makes the case for why GSG Impact's model of locally-rooted national partners, domestic capital mobilisation, and the forthcoming Impact Economy Index represents a fundamentally different approach to the problem.

If you work in impact investing, blended finance, or development policy — or if you want to understand how a $5 trillion SME finance gap in emerging markets actually gets closed — don't miss Elizabeth's practitioner case for why good deals do not automatically create good markets.

Featured Guest: 
Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen, CEO and Executive Director, GSG Impact

Listen Next:
Conversation with Leslie Maasdorp: From Apartheid to the BRICS Bank to BII — Leslie Maasdorp's Journey Through Development Finance

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Here’s what you’re in for:

00:00 – Intro & Trailer

01:02 – Scott's Introduction & Guest Framing

03:22 – Welcome & Introduction

03:30 – Three Generations: The Boggs Family & Early Lessons in Catalytic Capital

06:53 – Women Who Built Careers & Choosing International Development

08:01 – Georgetown, Madeleine Albright & Joining the UN

10:10 – First Posting: Khartoum, Sudan & the Power of Local

14:05 – Joining the IDB: Microfinance, OMJ & 20 Years of Lessons

21:20 – The Parachute Problem: What Development Finance Gets Wrong

23:25 – UNDP: Building the SDG Impact Standards

27:15 – The DFC: Policy Team Under Biden

28:25 – Joining GSG Impact: Field Builders for the Impact Economy

32:10 – Impact Economies vs. Impact Investments: The Core Thesis

34:15 – Priority 1: National Partnerships & the Ghana Case Study

36:20 – Priority 2: Impact Transparency & Frameworks Proliferation

41:20 – Does Impact Investing Outperform? The Growth Data

42:35 – Priority 3: $800M SME Finance Target & the Impact Economy Index

47:30 – Index Launch, Guardrails & the Race to the Top

49:15 – Geopolitical Reset: ODA Down 25%, USAID Gone, UK Aid Cut

53:05 – China: Avoided or Engaged?

55:25 – Rapid Fire

59:30 – Closing & How to Connect with GSG Impact

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