A question I keep getting back to is: why do family offices and development institutions in Europe contribute increasingly to impact investing funds, and the ones in MENA don’t (ok, I only ask myself this question some times, I do have other concerns going on in my life). As far as I know, I have never seen foundations from (wealthy) Gulf states putting money in the impact investing sector. I have not encountered any. Maybe, most of them lack understanding of the importance of impact investing as a development tool?
This might be changing with the newly created “Global Islamic Finance and Impact Investing Platform” with the mission to “connect Islamic impact investors and public or private funds with impact enterprises.” , the result of partnership between UNDP and the International Istanbul Center for Private Sector in Development (frankly, it is the first time I have heard of this one). They seem to be at the conceptualisation stage, so I don’t see any concrete project yet.
I’m back to my first question – if someone has some answers, please do get in touch.