Aid workers can’t be grouped together with hedge fund managers, nor can the tasks of an NGO program officer be directly compared to those of a Wall Street banker. Traditional finance and development will continue to remain distinct. But increasingly, their agendas have been converging.

Impact investing, the practice of deploying profit-seeking capital to achieve social good, as well as shared value — a management strategy that equates business value with sustainability practices — have both become more mainstream in the worlds of banking and finance, for example. And there is a virtually unanimous agreement among business, government and civil society that the 2030 development agenda can only be met if public aid is used to leverage private capital.

All told, the principles of finance are seemingly becoming more and more intertwined with how development is pursued. Are development professionals becoming adequately versed in the discipline of traditional finance as these trends continue to take hold?

Image: Somali shilling notes at a money exchanger’s stall in Mogadishu. UN Photo/Stuart Price.