Origins of the Fund: Drafting “From Billions to Trillions” and UN Sustainable Development Goals

In April 2015, multilateral development banks including ADB, AfDB, EBRD, EIB, IDB, the IMF and World Bank jointly commissioned a report, whose drafting was led by Bertrand Badré, Blue like an Orange’s CEO and at that time Managing Director at the World Bank, titled: “From Billions to Trillions: Transforming Development Finance”.

The report states clearly that in order to meet the investment needs of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the global community needs to move the discussion from “Billions” in Official Development Assistance to “Trillions” in investments of all kinds, especially from “private sector business, finance and investment”.

Three events shaped the landscape that year: The Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa; the UN General Assembly; and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change known as Accords de Paris (COP21).

That same year Bertrand Badre, then Managing Director of the World Bank, led the seminal report « From Billions to Trillions » jointly endorsed by the IMF and all international development finance institutions.

All of this laid the foundation for the concept of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital (“Blue like an Orange”), initially funded by Ray Chambers with founding partners Bertrand Badré (CEO), Amer Baig, and Suprotik (Protik) Basu – and then soon joined by Rashad Kaldany (CIO), and Emmanuelle Yannakis (CFO & CCO).

As Blue like an Orange was gaining traction, we pursued conversations we had initiated ahead of the creation of the company with President Luis Alberto Moreno of the Inter-American Development Bank.

Through those conversations emerged the unique cooperative structure between Blue like an Orange and the private lending arm of the Inter-American Development Bank, known as IDB Invest– as all parties saw an important opportunity to leverage the reach of the development finance system to attract increased private capital to achieve the SDGs.

Our purpose

“The objective of Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital is to […] show that it is possible to have a significant return while having an impact.”Bertrand Badré, CEO of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital.

As investors, Blue like an Orange believes that proactive orientation towards a social purpose in every investment will both support inclusive growth and enhance the performance of the portfolio. Managing for social, economic, and environmental impact is an important risk mitigation strategy for the success of the Fund’s investments.

We thus seek to invest in a diversified set of emerging market companies that deliver both strong risk-adjusted returns and social impact in direct support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).