Research
Emerging Private Markets
We measure the risk, return and impact of private capital in the Middle East, Africa and Southern Asia, to show where institutional portfolios can grow while financing development.
Private equity and venture capital are where investors can back the creation and growth of companies, and MEASA is where that growth is most needed. Yet institutional allocations to the region stay small, often on the basis of perceived rather than measured risk.
The program builds proprietary data on private equity funds active in emerging and least developed countries. We study the role of development banks and DFIs as limited partners, testing whether their participation screens for better funds and how an originate-to-share model can mobilise private capital at scale.
We also assemble a database of impact-oriented PE funds, classified through the IRIS+ taxonomy and assessed ex ante with the Signature Impact Framework, to examine whether impact orientation and financial returns go together.
Flagship projects
- Development Banks and the Returns to PE in EM/LDCs – fund-level evidence on DFI-backed private equity.
- Risk, Returns and Impact in EM/LDC Private Equity – the return–impact nexus in thematic private-market funds.
Program documents
Papers
- Source, not Sink: Reassessing the Middle East in Global Impact Investing – Bortolotti, Nocentini, Ahmed
- Measuring Risk and Return in Private Equity – Di Mario
Annual Report articles
- The Evolving Role of Development Finance Institutions in Global Private Equity (2025)
- Sustainable Finance in Southeast Asia: Approaching an Inflection Point (2025)
- The Mobilizing Private Capital Equation (2024)
- Why It Flows into Africa (2024)
- Catalysing Sustainable Infrastructure Projects: the Pentagreen Capital Solution (2024)
- Impact Capital Mobilisation: Activation Pathways for the “Missing Middle East” (2023)
- Leveraging Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to Drive Investment Return and Impact in Africa (2023)
- Gender Smart Investments: the Southern Asia Perspective (2023)
- The MEASA Growth Story (2022)
- Born Global (2022)
Insights
- Investing for Scaled Impact and Strong Returns: the Case of Lightrock – Lightrock, Dec 2025
- Inside the Emerging Africa & Asia Infrastructure Fund: Making Blended Finance Work – Valahu (PIDG), Dec 2025
- Why the Private Sector Must Lead in Africa’s Energy Future – Doree (Cygnum Capital), Dec 2025
- Six Surprising Ways Blockchain Could Finally Unleash Africa’s Renewable Energy Boom – Nagell (Mubadala), Dec 2025
- Development as a New Asset Class: the ILX Fund – Schepers, Vega (ILX), Feb 2025
- Are Emerging Market Risks for Private Investors Overstated? – Galizia, Lund (IFC), Feb 2025
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