NextBillion - A WDI Publication

About The Event
The Climate Implementation Forum is a strategic platform at Climate Week NYC focusing on the Global Climate Action Agenda, the central catalyst turning climate ambition into real-world delivery. Taking place on Monday 21 September, the Forum will unite decision-makers from governments, companies, investors, cities and civil society to showcase proof of progress, successful projects underway, capital deployed and measurable results. While identifying where expertise, technology, investment and operational capacity are urgently needed to scale implementation.

Held just seven weeks before COP31, the COP of Implementation and aligned with the six axes of the Action Agenda, the Forum will amplify the global focus on delivery and spotlight the organisations achieving real results.

Overview
Join Spring Impact and Lively Minds at UNGA81 for a session exploring how funders can best support government-led scale.

Working with governments is one of the most credible routes to exponential impact, but it only works when funders play an active role in making it possible.

What funding strategies and models enable government-led scale, and which ones hold it back?

Spring Impact and Lively Minds will bring together a panel of funders and NGO practitioners to explore the role funders play in supporting nonprofits to scale with government, and what needs to change in how capital is deployed.

Drawing on Spring Impact’s recent Scaling with Government study (developed in partnership with LGT Venture Philanthropy and Instiglio), which includes perspectives from governments themselves, alongside the panel’s experience, we’ll cover:

What this work demands in practice, from those pioneering new approaches to scaling with government
The real costs of NGO support to governments, and where current funding models fall short
What more adaptive funding could look like, including harmonising support across NGOs, so it’s conducive to long-term government-led scale
Co-hosts

Lively Minds
Spring Impact
Moderator

Tyler Spencer, Director of Partnerships and Growth, Spring Impact
Panellists

Alex Storey, Spring Impact
Alia Karim, Teaching at the Right Level Africa
Alison Naftalin, Founder & CEO, Lively Minds
Mohini Bhavsar, Grand Challenges Canada
Dr Natnael Yamnew, Africa Centre for ECD, Ethiopia
Tressa Johnson, Elma Philanthropies

Time: 3 PM – 4:30 PM

​About the session

​Every year, the same conversation happens.

​There is not enough capital flowing to climate and development solutions. The pipeline of investment-ready companies is too thin. Founders in emerging markets cannot access the support they need to reach scale.

​The conversation rarely asks the next question:

​Who is responsible for building the pipeline everyone says is missing?

​Venture studios, company builders, accelerators, and startup ecosystems are among the least discussed but potentially most consequential pieces of climate and development infrastructure.

​Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, these organizations are doing more than finding promising companies. Some are identifying problems, testing business models, developing talent, matching founders with ideas, and creating companies from scratch.

​That distinction matters.

​An accelerator typically starts with an existing company and helps it grow. A venture studio can begin much earlier: with a problem worth solving, a hypothesis to test, or a market that does not yet have the company it needs. It can build the initial team, validate the model, provide shared infrastructure, and eventually spin the venture out as an independent company.

​In ecosystems where capital, experienced founders, specialist talent, and business infrastructure are harder to access, creating a company can require building some of the conditions around it too.

​But who funds that work?

​Company building requires patient capital, tolerance for failure and iteration, and funders willing to finance the infrastructure around entrepreneurship rather than simply selecting individual ventures once they become investable.

​Accelerators and incubators face their own questions. What distinguishes programs that create durable companies from those that create impressive Demo Day pitches? How should climate-focused accelerators navigate the tension between moving quickly and building deeply? What support do founders actually need after a cohort ends?

​And underneath all of this sits another question: what are we building the pipeline for?

​As philanthropic and investment capital flows into venture-building ecosystems, success cannot simply mean producing more companies that investors want to fund. The companies being created also need to solve meaningful problems for the communities and markets they were supposedly built to serve.

​This session will move the conversation beyond the financing gap to the infrastructure that comes before it.

​Who creates entrepreneurs? Who builds companies before they are investable? And what would happen if climate and development funders took company creation as seriously as company funding?

​Discussion Group Leaders

• ​Linus Mueller is Director at Enviu Foundation, building sustainable ventures and entrepreneurial ecosystems that address systemic challenges across agrifood, finance, textiles, and waste.

• ​Rebecca McAtee is Director of Development at Halcyon, mobilizing philanthropic capital to support entrepreneurs developing innovative solutions across climate, health, and equity.

• ​Yaquta Fatehi is Program Manager at William Davidson Institute at U of Michigan, advancing evidence-based approaches that help businesses and enterprise support organizations measure and scale inclusive impact.

• ​CJ Fonzi is Co-Founder and COO at Africa Climate Ventures, accelerating climate-positive businesses across Africa through investment, venture building, and portfolio support.

​What to expect

​A practitioner-led conversation grounded in experience building ventures, running accelerators and incubators, and investing in early-stage companies across emerging markets.

​Participants will compare what venture studios, accelerators, incubators, investors, and other ecosystem builders actually contribute at different stages of a company’s development, including where each model works and where it does not.

​The discussion will also interrogate what capital these organizations themselves need, how long company creation really takes, and whether current funding structures reward the patient ecosystem-building required to produce stronger ventures.

​This is not a pitch for one model. It is an opportunity to get more precise about the infrastructure required before there is an investment-ready company to finance.

​Who this is for

​This session is for venture studio founders and operators, accelerator and incubator leaders, entrepreneurs, impact investors, climate and development funders, ecosystem builders, and anyone trying to strengthen the pipeline of companies in emerging markets.

​

What you will get out of it

• ​A clearer framework for understanding the different roles of venture studios, accelerators, incubators, and investors

• ​Ground-level insight into what it takes to create companies in emerging-market ecosystems

• ​Perspectives on the patient, fit-for-purpose capital required to fund company-building infrastructure

• ​Practical insight into what early-stage entrepreneurs actually need before conventional investors are ready to back them

• ​A sharper way to evaluate whether an entrepreneurial ecosystem is simply producing more ventures or building companies capable of creating meaningful value for the communities they serve

Building a Future of Resilience and Shared Prosperity
The Global Goals Summit 2026 brings together leaders from business, government and civil society to explore a renewed shared vision for business beyond 2030, and you are warmly invited to be part of the conversation.

Be part of the conversation
Join us online from anywhere in the world, or apply to take part in person in New York on 22 September.