What is a Country Platform?

Country Platforms are country-owned investment and delivery mechanisms for sectoral transformation in line with national priorities. Country platforms are voluntary, government-led, multi-stakeholder partnerships designed to coordinate international public finance around shared national goals. While different groups offer varying visions for how they should operate, they generally aim to support scaled, accelerated, programmatic approaches to critical challenges - such as sector transitions - by streamlining stakeholder coordination and enabling strategic approaches to mobilizing investment.

How these goals are delivered varies significantly by country context. Country Platforms have been most effective in mobilizing international private finance for large EDME countries that are close to investment grade, with developed financial systems. Nonetheless, platforms can also be a useful tool for LDCs for aligning international public capital with domestic sources and encouraging private sector participation. Each platform reflects its country context and there is no single model. They can take many forms, from “Just Energy Transition Partnerships” focused on energy transitions, pioneered by South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and Senegal, to multi-sectoral Climate Prosperity Plans in Bangladesh and Barbados, to the Brazil Investment Platform in Brazil and the Nexus of Water, Food and Energy Program in Egypt. There is significant variation across countries, meaning there is no one-size-fits-all approach to country platforms. It is therefore important to learn from the lessons of previous platforms, while recognising that models successful in one context may need to be adapted for another.

In practice, this means that countries approaching Country Platform development will arrive with different combinations of these inputs in place. Country Platforms are designed to sit at the delivery end of this architecture: where an INFF exists, it provides the financing diagnostic that should inform platform design; where a CPP exists, it defines the investment agenda that the platform is intended to execute. Where neither exists, the Country Platform draws directly on the NDC and national development plans as its strategic anchor. In all cases, the platform's role is to provide the institutional and operational structure needed to turn strategic commitments into funded, governed, and implemented investment programmes.

It is important to note that country platforms are not a silver bullet. Indeed, it may not always be useful for a country to develop a country platform; platforms tend to be most effective in countries where there are significant transition opportunities, strong investor interest, and a clear need to better coordinate engagement across multiple public and private actors.