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STORY: Steer said reform of the World Bank and other multilateral lenders could go further to bolster financial flows to emerging markets, as could charitable grant-giving groups.

Calls for changes to the international financial architecture have increased in recent months and changes at the World Bank are likely to be central to talks of the G20 group of nations in Delhi and the COP28 climate talks in November.

Under new CEO Ajay Banga, the World Bank has moved to expand its climate change and hunger programs, and boost its lending power through new funding and balance sheet rules, although Steer said even more could be done.

"They can't do anything revolutionary, but my goodness me, they could do some pretty important things. They could take more risks but also they can be willing to have, if you like, a slightly different place in the capital stack."

The work of the Bezos Earth Fund, which aims to disburse all its capital before 2030, covers everything from food systems to decarbonising energy systems and monitoring deforestation. To date it has given nearly $2 billion through 200 grants.

Another area that groups like the Bezos Earth Fund, the world's largest climate philanthropy group, could get involved is in helping get potential projects to market, Steer said.

"In Africa... maybe 40% of the projects that you design will never actually come to financial closure. So they're (the private sector) not willing to take risk, so maybe then we could come in and do that kind of thing."