Rethinking Development Finance Amid Cutbacks with Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen
In an era marked by shifting priorities and significant funding disruptions—exemplified by efforts to eliminate USAID and reduce financial support for global institutions like the World Health Organization—impact-driven initiatives face unprecedented challenges. The sudden dismantling of USAID is not an isolated event; it reflects a broader global trend as countries including the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland significantly reduce overseas development assistance. These moves create alarming gaps in funding for programs addressing poverty, malnutrition, disease, and climate resilience, fundamentally reshaping how these critical social and environmental issues are tackled.
In this rapidly evolving landscape, impact investors, philanthropies, and entrepreneurs stand at a critical juncture, poised to fill emergent gaps and sustain momentum in essential development initiatives. While impact investing cannot entirely replace traditional aid, it can play a crucial role in creating quality jobs, enhancing food security, improving healthcare access, and strengthening climate resilience. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation between Impact Entrepreneur’s Laurie Lane-Zucker and renowned impact investment leader Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen, CEO of GSG Impact, as they explore the urgent responsibilities and opportunities for impact investing amid these profound changes.
Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen is CEO of GSG Impact. Previously, she was the Vice President of the Office of Development Policy at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). She led a team of environmental, social, impact, and technical assistance experts, responsible for safeguarding environmental and social risks of DFC’s investments, ensuring projects maximized positive development outcomes, and deploying technical assistance to improve DFC’s projects.
Before her work at DFC, Elizabeth was the Director of SDG Impact, a flagship initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), mobilizing private sector capital toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. For much of her career, she held leadership roles at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), managing the impact investing portfolio of its largest administered fund.
Laurie Lane-Zucker is Founder and CEO of Impact Entrepreneur, PBC, an impact economy business that hosts the Impact Entrepreneur Network — a large, global network of “systems-minded” entrepreneurs, investors, and scholars of social and environmental innovation — and editor and publisher of Impact Entrepreneur, a digital magazine covering the emerging Impact Economy. For over 30 years, Laurie has been a “pioneer” (Forbes) and recognized leader in sustainability, social enterprise, and impact investing. Laurie was the founding Executive Director of the international environmental organization, Orion Society, which publishes the celebrated Orion Magazine, as well as the founder of a global sustainability think-tank, the Triad Institute, and Hotfrog, a Founding B Corporation, GIIRS Pioneer Company, and the first company ever to complete an equity transaction on an impact investment exchange. Laurie is the bestselling and multiple award-winning publisher and editor of books and magazines on sustainability and social impact — having worked with such acclaimed authors as Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, and David James Duncan — and the author of numerous articles on entrepreneurship and impact investing. Laurie is contributing author to the recently published academic textbook from World Scientific, Sustainability: Business and Investment Implications (2023).
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