Experts and practitioners from around the world have been developing the concept that has become known as Global Public Investment (GPI) for over a decade, building on a long tradition of critique of development narratives, global governance and “aid”-based approaches to financing our common global objectives.
In 2013 the UNDP published a paper by a small working group (Gail Hurley, Rathin Roy, Francisco Sagasti, Alioune Sall & Jonathan Glennie) Scholars working on global inequality (Reid-Henry, 2015) had also begun exploring alternative paradigms of international public finance and landed on a similar approach.
In the following years these proposals were shared and discussed, and in 2017 the Global Fund Advocacy Network, Equal International and the Joep Lange Institute began to explore the idea more deeply.
In 2019 a consolidated GPI proposal was presented for the first time in a meeting at the UNGA in New York, hosted by the Open Society Foundations.
An Expert Working Group began its analysis in October 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic was forcing a deep rethink about how we cooperate to build a better world. It published a Progress Report in July 2021 that became the basis of a Global Consultation (Jul-Dec 2021). The EWG’s main recommendations were launched in July 2022.
All of this groundwork has led to the gradual creation of an informal network cocreating and advocating for GPI. That informal network is now formalised with the launch of the Global Public Investment Network (GPIN).