Current policy debates create a supportive atmosphere for reinvigorating the effort to improve financing systems for local government investment. These include the post-2015 development agenda discussions and the increasing emphasis on urbanization as a determinate of LDC growth and transition to middle-income status. Further, other economic and social concerns - such as the search by investors for new opportunities as the financial crisis subsides, the growing need for investment for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and increasing emphasis on equity as a development indicator - provide additional reasons to promote the municipal financing agenda worldwide, and particularly in the LDCs.

MIF will be an important platform for UNCDF, and the UN in general, to make the case that the time has come to understand and address the myriad of restrictions that keep an adequate flow of sustainable capital financing, including financing by the private sector from both domestic and international sources, from being invested in productive assets that increase local GFCF (urban infrastructure) and other urgent needs of local governments in the developing world.