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Scaling the Last-Mile Distribution Industry With Data-Driven Lending
Low-income consumers in emerging markets rely heavily on last-mile distributors (LMDs) for access to life-changing products, from smartphones to solar home systems. But as Erin Junio at Angaza explains, despite the critical role they play in the sale and distribution of these products, LMDs struggle to access the funding they need to scale. She explores the funding challenges these businesses face — and how data-driven innovations in lending are emerging to close this financing gap.
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Impact Investing in Financial Inclusion in Southeast Asia: Four Key Considerations for Investors and Enterprises
Southeast Asian nations are seeing movement toward greater financial inclusion, but this growth, fueled mostly by digital innovations, is not enough to meet customer needs, say Komal Sahu and Danielle Todesco of AVPN. They share four key considerations that investors and enterprises can take into account to promote interoperability, financial literacy and product accessibility while boosting financial access in the region.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Beyond Risk: How Addressing Transaction Costs Can Boost Lending to Agricultural SMEs in Africa
Providing loans to agricultural enterprises in East Africa can be a complicated task, with challenges ranging from higher origination costs to arduous journeys to conduct due diligence. As Brian Milder of Aceli Africa explains, that makes many lenders reluctant to serve these businesses — and this lack of capital is stunting the growth of local agri-SMEs. In this third article in a four-part series, he explores the barriers to financing in the industry – particularly the under-recognized role of high transaction costs in limiting capital flows – and shares how Aceli is addressing them.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
- Tags
- impact investing, lending
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Bringing Impact Data Out of the Dark: Why Impact Investors Need Harmonized Reporting Platforms to Reach Their Goals
Impact reporting today is inconsistent, unverified and locked up in information silos, with multiple, competing reporting platforms and methodologies. As Adam S. Bendell of Toniic explains, this makes it difficult for impact investors to compare and maximize the positive net impact of their investments. The key to solving this dilemma, he says, is to develop an interoperable ecosystem for reporting impact data. He shares four ways the sector could move toward this goal, building a system in which investors can easily compare impact performance across their portfolios.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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21st Century Investing: Why Today’s Global Challenges Call for a System-Level Approach to Impact
From climate change and embedded social inequities to global pandemics, the scope and scale of the risks facing our world have increased. But according to William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg at The Investment Integration Project, these overlapping crises are serving as wake-up calls to many investors, leading them to take a more holistic approach to today's complex challenges. They describe this growing class of “system-level investors,” and how they're going beyond both conventional and sustainable investing to address global problems on a deep, systemic level.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- corporations, ESG, impact investing
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Building Inclusion Into the Investment Process: Four Steps for Addressing Bias Against Women Startup Founders
While overall global funding for startups grew in 2020, women founders received 27% less investment than the previous year. The problem is particularly troubling in emerging markets, where only 11% of seed funding went to companies with a woman on their founding team in 2019. Akansha Kasera and Malika Anand at BFA's Catalyst Fund discussed the issue with two female venture capitalists, Lexi Novitske from Acuity Ventures and Lelemba Phiri from Enygma Ventures: They share four steps the investment industry should take to boost gender equity and reduce bias against women startup founders.
- Categories
- Investing
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Elbow to Elbow: Convening Donors and Practitioners to Optimize Blended Finance for African Agriculture
Official development assistance isn't enough to bridge the SDG financing gap, or to unlock the growth and impact potential of African agricultural enterprises. Blended finance is often cited as a solution, but according to Brian Milder of Aceli Africa, it's falling short both in terms of impact and private capital mobilized. He explains the reasons for these limitations, and examines the perspectives of both donors and lenders to show how catalytic capital can be leveraged more effectively.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
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Climate-Positive Agriculture: How Investors Can Support Smallholder Farmers – While Also Regenerating the Environment
Global agricultural demand is expected to increase by about 50% from 2013 to 2050, as the world's population is projected to reach nearly 10 billion. Smallholder farmers in Africa and Latin America are well-positioned to meet this growing need – but expanding their current unsustainable farming practices could cause massive climate and environmental consequences. Bianca Samson, Flavia Howard and Kusi Hornberger at Dalberg share how investing in regenerative, climate-smart agriculture can boost food security and benefit smallholders, investors and the environment.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Investing