Authored by GAIL – the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers – the Report leverages the expertise of over 40 lawyers from across 13 jurisdictions who have expertise in advising on blended finance structures, through a series of 8 blended finance working group meetings over the course of a year (2023 – 2024).

All blended finance projects require a legal platform. Legal structuring and legal instruments and techniques are essential to achieve the fundamental objective of combining the right mix of financing – public, philanthropic and private – for social and environmental outcomes.  This Report identifies and maps the legal and regulatory supports for and barriers to blended finance and shares lessons, learnings and legal case studies from across the world.

Through this Report, GAIL hopes to support the more effective use of blended finance and to enable the scaling of blended finance structures and instruments for positive social and environmental Impact.

Jaime Begara Breton from FinDev Canada's Legal Services team has contributed to this report by authoring a piece on the legal and regulatory challenges in structuring blended finance funds established in the EU, (a common market for these funds), and set up to provide loans to sub-borrowers. His contribution is significant as it highlights a new legal hurdle that will likely affect many of these type of funds going forward: new restrictions that impose a limit on the portion of the fund's capital structure that can be composed of debt.  Given that the capital structure of blended finance funds is typically complex, consisting of different layers of capital (debt, equity, guarantees, or grants) to accommodate both commercial and concessional capital, these new restrictions complicate structuring of blended finance funds set up in the EU. Jaime's contribution emphasizes the importance of seeking specialized legal advice when designing blended finance funds.