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Mini-grids May Not Be the Answer: Why Shifts in Technology and Funding Have Changed the Energy Access Outlook in Africa
There is intense pressure to reach universal energy access by 2030, which requires a further 666 million people to be electrified, most of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. And according to Stewart Hicks at Bamboo Capital Partners, mini-grids are often viewed as a key part of the solution, leading to growing calls for more private sector investment in this technology. But he argues that this focus on mini-grids may be distracting from faster, more cost-effective approaches. He explains why mini-grids — despite being a good solution in some areas — have several under-reported constraints, and explores some emerging alternative electrification models that may present a more realistic path toward greater energy access in Africa.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing, Technology
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The Catch-22 in Global Health Finance: Why Medical Oxygen is the Test Case for Turning Aid into Investment
By most measures, medical oxygen in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t an investable market. As Alex Losneanu and Jason Houdek at Oxygen CoLab explain, providing medical oxygen is capital-intensive and operationally demanding. That means small- and medium-sized oxygen suppliers typically stall out or get absorbed into grant-funded programs instead of becoming commercially viable, and funders conclude that these SMEs are too fragile to justify the investment risk. They argue that this conclusion is wrong, and also self-fulfilling, reinforcing a Catch-22 that exists across global health. They share findings from a supplier mapping project that show how emerging business models are enabling oxygen SMEs to scale, and propose three shifts in how catalytic capital can be designed to support these and other businesses across the global health sector.
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- Health Care, Investing
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Learning from the Corporate Playbook: Why NGOs Must Claim a Niche to Survive the Aid Recession
Global aid funding has dropped dramatically in recent years, while private sector funding in low-and middle-income countries has risen sharply. According to social innovations advisor Rajat Ray, this is not a temporary shift but a fundamental restructuring of how global development will be financed. He explores what this new reality means for NGOs and other grant-seeking organizations, arguing that unlocking private capital will require them to adopt the corporate principles of strategic positioning and niche specialization, shifting from broad thematic focus areas to high-impact, technical interventions that target specific needs.
- Categories
- Investing
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When ‘Patient Capital’ isn’t Patient Enough: How Mismatched Funder Timelines in PAYGo Solar are Holding Back Energy Access in Africa
The energy access conversation in Africa is usually framed around deployment, with success defined by connection targets, cost reduction and rural reach. But Kolawole Osinowo at the FATE Institute argues that these goals don't address a binding constraint for companies working at the last mile: the time it takes for households to repay the solar assets they bought via PAYGo financing. As he explains, the PAYGo model spreads out payments for the benefit of the consumer, but it adds the cost of waiting to the provider’s balance sheet — and that cost later spreads to the company’s investors. And though much of the capital that supports energy access presents itself as patient, willing to wait for these PAYGo assets to be repaid, in practice, these investors often behave otherwise. He discusses the impacts of this mismatch, and explores how capital can be structured for better alignment with PAYGo timelines.
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Taking First-Loss Guarantees Further: Four Problems That Keep Social Enterprises Stuck, and How Entrepreneurship Support Organizations Can Address Them
Grants and equity dominate the conversation in impact finance, but according to Srinivas Ramanujam at Villgro, debt is often the most practical tool for social enterprises that are too large for a grant, but too small and early-stage for most equity investors. And since lenders face real and perceived risks around these companies' creditworthiness, first-loss guarantees can help make debt capital more accessible. However, he explains that a guarantee alone is not a silver bullet, and that the harder work involves solving the problems that keep enterprises stuck. He explores how Villgro has addressed four of these key challenges, highlighting takeaways for entrepreneurship support organizations and other intermediaries.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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The Flawed Assumptions Behind AI for Agriculture: What Artificial Intelligence Can — And Can’t — Do for African Farmers
There is a dominant mental model of AI for agriculture. According to Sheena Raikundalia at Kuza, the pitch goes something like this: “What if every farmer had a personal AI advisor telling them what to grow, when to plant and how much fertilizer or other inputs to apply?” That model is sleek, frictionless, and built on the assumption that farmers are operating alone with the algorithm, receiving personalized recommendations and optimizing their decisions accordingly. But as she argues, optimizing agriculture in Africa is not primarily an information problem: It is a trust problem, a market access problem, a collective action problem and a financing problem — and addressing those challenges requires a human connection. She explores Kuza's experiences offering an AI chatbot to Kenyan farmers, and shares lessons on how best to leverage both human and digital resources to support smallholders in Africa.
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- Agriculture, Technology
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Making Waste Pay: The Keys to Sustaining Paying Customers in Solid Waste Management
Despite growing discourse around the revenue potential of waste to wealth — i.e., reimagining waste as a valuable resource — profitability in municipal solid waste management remains low in India and other low- and middle-income countries. As Vishwanath Varma, Archana Masih, Diksha Rana and Ashish Kapil at Waste Warriors Society argue, this challenge has led to a growing focus on collecting user fees from households — yet that goal is easier said than done. They share analysis based on Waste Warriors Society’s user fee records and customer surveys, which reveals key insights on how to retain paying customers in solid waste management and other user fee-based models of social entrepreneurship.
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- Social Enterprise, WASH
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The Three Ingredients of Impact AI: Research from India Offers Guidance for AI for Social Good in Emerging Markets
The conversation around “AI for social good” has moved beyond hype and potential and into a high-stakes implementation phase, as a growing number of real-world use cases have emerged. Kalpa Impact conducted analysis of 97 startups and 13 non-profits deploying AI for social good at population-scale in India, seeking to understand who is building these tools, where they are being deployed and whether there is evidence of impact. Sushant Kumar and Ananya Mukherjee at Kalpa Impact share insights from this analysis, highlighting three key ingredients that can enable the successful deployment of impact AI in India and other emerging markets.
- Categories
- Technology
