Welcome to my website!
I am an independent senior advisor on development finance. I am passionate about finance for positive change. I advise NGOs, philanthropic foundations, thinktanks and international organisations (including the UN, the Commonwealth Secretariat and many others) on how to mobilise more finance for the SDGs.
I am a specialist in innovative financing models for the blue economy, with a particular focus on developing financing solutions in the Global South. I have worked in many different countries, including in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific, and on a range of financing mechanisms, including incubation funds, blended finance funds, impact bonds and debt-for-development swaps. I have looked extensively at debt issues, with a particular focus on small island developing states. I am currently based between Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England.
Prior to my independent advisory work, from 2022-2023, I was Director of Advisory at Finance Earth, a mission-driven social enterprise, working in partnership with world leading environmental organisations to protect and restore nature utilising market based mechanisms and implementing bespoke financial tools. Finance Earth helps create projects – and the investment vehicles to fund them – that balance positive outcomes for nature, communities and investors.
Before this, I worked as an independent advisor and researcher on development finance for a range of clients from the philanthropic sector, non-profit sector and UN. These included the Gates Foundation, UN Joint SDG Fund, UNDP, World Food Programme (WFP) and the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) I also served as a Fellow with Development Initiatives, a leading international development organisation in the UK between 2019 and 2021.
For almost 10 years, I was a Policy Specialist and Advisor on Development Finance with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York, where I focused on innovative development finance mechanisms. I supported several developing countries to develop financing for development strategies or implement various innovative finance mechanisms, such as Rwanda, Cabo Verde and Zambia. I led UNDP’s substantive contributions to the UN’s 3rd international conference on financing for development (2015). Between 2015 and 2019, I managed and helped to build the fantastic OECD-UNDP Tax Inspectors Without Borders initiative.
Before that, I was with the European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD), an NGO in Brussels where I led the organisation’s work on debt, involving research, advocacy and campaigning, including in the run-up to the 2005 G8 Gleneagles Summit. I also spent some time in Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru for the organisation. I have also held positions at the European Volunteer Centre, the European Commission (DG Development), and have worked as an English language teacher.
My postgraduate studies were in development and economics; my undergraduate studies in French and Spanish.
I love to write and have authored (and co-authored) numerous research reports, policy papers, articles and blogs on various aspects of development finance, including innovative finance (e.g. blended finance, social impact bonds, urban and municipal finance), debt (including ‘ethical’ and green debt products and state-contingent debt instruments), development aid and tax. I have written for (among others) the University of Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI) blog, UNDP’s blog ‘Our Perspective’ and have also written for other development media outlets ( such as the Guardian and Devex). On this website, you can read about my work.
I currently serve on the Global Steering Group of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI), a non-profit organisation based in Scotland, and am a member of the expert working group of the Global Public Investment Network.
I hope you find some of my work of interest!
Gail Hurley 