NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Shabana Abbas is Lead Innovative Finance at Aqua for All, a not-for-profit based out of the Netherlands with a focus on drinking water and sanitation in frontier markets in Asia and Africa. Shabana brings over a decade of professional experience at the intersection of catalytic impact investments, social entrepreneurship, and private sector development. In her current role, she works directly with impact investors and SMEs through deployment of catalytic investments into innovative, blended finance structures. Shabana has successfully scaled the ‘Social Impact Incentives-SIINC’ model in the WASH sector by designing and launching the first-ever ‘Impact-Linked Fund for WASH’. Previously, she co-led one of the largest water innovation funds in Africa, providing seed capital and technical assistance to more than 60 early-stage ventures across eight countries in Africa. 

Shabana has completed an executive program on Impact Finance Innovations from the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. She holds a MSc in Environmental Sciences from IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands, and an MBA and BS (Economics and Finance) from the Institute of Business Management in Pakistan. Shabana has also completed the IIBF executive program on Impact Investing and Blended Finance from the Initiative for Blended Finance at the University of Zurich.