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Tapping the Potential of Catalytic Carbon Finance: Could This Collaborative Approach Unlock Scale in Africa’s Off-Grid Solar Sector?
Addressing Africa's growing demand for reliable, renewable energy is essential for the continent's sustainable economic development. But as Peter Simiyu at EcoSecurities explains, despite Africa's ample clean energy resources, just 2% of renewable energy investments have been channelled to the region in the past decade. He explores how an innovative approach to catalytic carbon finance could help provide the funding businesses need to kick-start off-grid power deployment, enabling Africa to lead the global shift toward clean energy.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing
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Africa’s Startups Need Patient Capital: Could the African Diaspora Help Provide it?
African startup funding amounts to a tiny fraction of global venture capital (VC), and these investments are often concentrated on sectors like fintech and e-commerce. As a result, as Kristin H. Wilson at Innovate Africa Fund argues, African founders often lack the capital and incentive to tackle the continent’s biggest development challenges. She proposes a new approach to funding innovative African-made solutions to these issues — one that leverages the capital and entrepreneurial expertise of the African diaspora.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
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The Gender Aspect of the E-Mobility Transition: An Innovative Collaboration in Kenya Highlights New Ways to Bring Women into the Sector
The transition to electric mobility (e-mobility) represents a massive shift for consumers, businesses and other stakeholders. But as Dana Gorodetsky at the William Davidson Institute argues, it also creates an opportunity to engage women as electric vehicle (EV) entrepreneurs, designers, producers and drivers — and to design mobility solutions with women's needs in mind. She explores how Kenya is leading the way in ensuring a just and inclusive e-mobility transition, highlighting two companies that are working to boost women’s involvement in the EV value chain.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Transportation
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Making Mini-Grids Work for Everyone: A Tariff Harmonization Pilot in Sierra Leone Reveals the Benefits and Challenges of Lowering Prices
Solar mini-grids offer a promising solution to energy poverty in Africa. But according to Tombo Banda and Lisa Kahuthu at CrossBoundary and Miriam Atuya, this approach has yet to gain sufficient traction, due in part to the challenge of balancing operational sustainability with affordability. If customer tariffs are set too low, operators lack revenue — but if prices are set too high, mini-grid electricity isn’t accessible enough to drive widespread adoption. They share the results of a pilot program in Sierra Leone that tested the impact of lower prices on mini-grid operators and their customers, highlighting the implications for future efforts to implement tariff reduction at scale.
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Subsidy and Synergy: How Philanthropy Can Complement Impact Investing More Effectively
The original goal of impact investing was to build out the funding spectrum between philanthropy and commercial investment. But according to Asad Mahmood at SIMA and Nanno Kleiterp, the arrival of private equity firms — promising scale and market-rate financial returns — has pulled all the sector's energy toward the commercial end of the spectrum. They explore the key role philanthropic subsidy has played in the development of emerging markets business, clarify some misconceptions about its role in impact investing, and propose some ways philanthropists and impact investors can better align their efforts.
- Categories
- Energy, Finance, Investing, Social Enterprise
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You Can’t Have Global Standards Without the Global South: Why Emerging Markets Must Lead the Way in Driving Impact Reporting Transparency
In recent years, global standard-setting bodies have released widely adopted impact reporting standards, designed to ensure that companies disclose sustainability- and climate-related information alongside their financial statements. Though these standards are a huge step forward for global impact transparency, Ibukun Awosika argues that they reveal a troubling power dynamic between developed and emerging markets. She explores how key voices in the Global South were left out of the process of developing these standards, and proposes two changes that can ensure a greater role for them going forward.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
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Doing Business During a Crisis: Lessons for Driving Social Impact While Navigating Adversity in the World’s Toughest Environments
During a recent trip to Nairobi, Brigit Helms at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship found her delegation engulfed in chaotic street protests that forced them to seek shelter in a partner's local office. As she explains, the experience highlighted the kinds of challenges faced by social enterprises and other organizations navigating crises around the world. She shares lessons from three Miller Center partners operating in three different crisis zones, which show how resilient organizations can drive impact, even in the harshest conditions.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- MSMEs, NGOs, nonprofits, refugees
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Navigating the Financing Paradox for WSMEs: Workable Solutions for Increasing Financial Inclusion Among Women-Owned or -Led Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
In Africa, an estimated $42 billion financing gap exists for small and medium-sized enterprises owned or led by women (WSMEs). According to Nathalie Gogue-Ebo, Crystal Mugimba, Millie Maina and Shiemaa Ahmed at Open Capital, this gap has persisted despite the fact that women own the majority of the continent’s SMEs, and that globally, they default on their loans at a rate 53% lower than men. They explore the main roadblocks facing African WSMEs, and share some solutions that can ensure that these women entrepreneurs have access to the capital they need to thrive.
