The ultimate impact of sustainable finance in shaping ‘the world we want’ remains inconclusive. Nevertheless, policymakers and practitioners are required to make timely decisions pertaining to the ways in which capital markets might be leveraged to achieve their policy objectives, before rapidly evolving market dynamics leave them behind. This policy brief offers empirical insights from Cabo Verde’s recent experience with sustainable finance to showcase how it may, under certain conditions, promote integrated yet decentralized responses to persistent local, regional and global challenges. Adopting a pragmatic approach, the case of Cabo Verde’s blue finance exchange (Blu-X) platform illustrates three overarching points relevant to the adoption and implementation of sustainable finance principles and instruments for achieving sustainable development: (1) Strategic context and political-economic institutions matter; 2) Prioritize local institutional capacity to establish the framework conditions wherein sustainable impact investment can act as a catalyst for bottom-up action; 3) A horizontally (across sectors) and vertically (local-global) integrated nexus can diversify development finance, while transcending the proverbial public private divide. The lessons derived from the application of sustainable finance in Cabo Verde may be useful for informing policy approaches in other contexts, especially for small-island developing states (SIDS), African middleincome countries (MICs), Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) and others seeking to integrate capital markets into sustainable development financing strategies.