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Insights from 10 Years of Boosting Gender Inclusion in Business: A Pioneering Social Enterprise Explores How the Sector Can Take the Next Steps
Over the past 10 years, gender inclusion has become a growing priority in business and investing. However, as Rebecca Fries and Luis Marquez at Value for Women point out, only $6 billion was raised for gender lens investing in 2021 — a tiny percentage of the $1.2 trillion raised by private markets globally. As Value for Women moves into its second decade, they share insights that will fuel progress toward gender inclusion in business and investment in emerging markets over the coming years.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Rethinking Scale in Agribusiness: An Impact Investor Explores the Massive Benefits of Being Small
Many impact investors have adopted the mindset of traditional venture capital, seeking out companies with the potential to reach millions of customers. But Chris Wayne and Coco Lim at Acumen argue that this single-minded focus on scale ignores the realities of agribusinesses in emerging markets, and overlooks small businesses' potential to make a deeper impact. They explore why impact investors should focus on more than just the number of "lives impacted” by their agriculture investments, moving toward a more nuanced understanding of scale in this crucial sector.
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- Agriculture, Investing, Social Enterprise
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The Global Digital Health Monitor: A New Resource Advances the Digital Transformation of Global Health Systems
COVID-19 catalyzed the scaling of a variety of digital health interventions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). But as Patricia Mechael at HealthEnabled points out, this has not translated into the sustained digital transformation of healthcare in many of these markets. As broader technological advancements create a strong enabling environment for digital health in LMICs, she explores how a new resource, the Global Digital Health Monitor, can help these countries strategically advance their digital health transformation.
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- Health Care, Investing, Technology, Telecommunications
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The Sleeping Giants of the Green Economy: New Research in India and Kenya Shows How Small Businesses Can Lead the Way in Addressing Climate Change
Given the scope of the climate crisis, and the extent to which the private sector is contributing to it, it's clear that businesses must play a central role in the global response. Abigayle Davidson at ANDE and Patrick Obonyo at IKEA Foundation argue that small and growing businesses (SGBs) are critical yet underutilized drivers of innovative solutions to the world’s growing climate-related challenges. They share new research from ANDE that explores SGBs’ role in advancing the green economy in India and Kenya.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
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A Blueprint for Productive Use of Clean Energy: An Accelerator in Nigeria Generates Solutions for Linking Mini-Grids to Agricultural Equipment in Rural Communities
There are over 70 mini-grids operating in Nigeria today, and similar businesses are delivering clean energy in other underserved communities around the world. But as Scarlett Santana at RMI explains, serving these markets presents unique challenges, since if customers lack productive uses for the electricity they sell, mini-grids’ revenue model fails. She explores how mini-grids can address this challenge by partnering with agricultural equipment providers, and discusses an accelerator co-led by RMI that is providing the ecosystem to make these partnerships happen.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Investing
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Accelerating Social Unicorns: How an Impact Accelerator is Supporting the Innovators Who are Tackling the World’s Biggest Problems
The holy grail in venture capital is to invest in a “unicorn” — a startup that achieves a valuation of over $1 billion. But as Leslie Labruto at 100x Impact Accelerator explains, this approach overlooks the businesses and organizations that are tackling pressing societal issues at scale. She argues that it’s time to shift the focus to "social unicorns" that aim to make a massive positive social impact, and explores three keys to these enterprises' success.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Accelerating Systems Change: An Innovative Accelerator Shows How Funders Can Amplify Social Enterprises’ Impact by Transforming Their Funding Model
There’s a growing belief that lasting solutions to today's complex challenges will require fundamental changes to the systems that underlie these issues. According to Celia Sanchez-Valladares Barahona, Stella Printezi and Lucía Tornero at Ashoka, social entrepreneurs are well-placed to accelerate systems change, but the funding models they rely on may end up prolonging the issues they're trying to solve. They explain how funders can transform these increasingly outdated models to better support long-term, systemic change, as illustrated by an accelerator co-created by Ashoka and IKEA Social Entrepreneurship.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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A Blueprint for Closing the SDG Financing Gap: How to Raise $290 Billion in 12 Months to Tackle the World’s Biggest Problems
As of 2020, the annual SDG financing gap for developing countries stood at $4.2 trillion — up from $2.5 trillion pre-pandemic. And according to Chris Clubb at Convergence Blended Finance, though private capital is crucial to closing this gap, the $240 billion in annual public development finance only mobilizes around $44 billion in private investment, which covers just 1% of these countries' climate and SDG investment needs. He explores the core elements of Convergence's Action Plan for Climate and SDG Investment Mobilization, which shows how a small amount of public and philanthropic funding can catalyze private investment to more than double total climate and SDG financing in developing economies.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing