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Filling the Water Access Funding Gap: Three Lessons to Maximize the Impact of Innovative Finance
More than two billion people still live without access to safe drinking water, but global funding to meet their water needs is severely lacking. As Lauren Cuscuna of Safe Water Network explains, innovative financing mechanisms can help fill the gap – but blended finance transactions in the water sector are lower than in other industries. She shares three key lessons Safe Water Network has learned while implementing innovative financing approaches to meet the long-term needs of the local water enterprises it works with in Ghana and India.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Technology, WASH
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Innovation in Action: Lessons From Healthcare Innovators That Rapidly Pivoted To Respond to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced health-focused social enterprises to adjust their methods and priorities, shifting their modes of patient engagement and even developing entirely new programs. Innovations in Healthcare, a nonprofit housed at Duke University, studied a group of health innovators working in low- and middle-income countries to understand these shifts. Victoria Hsiung, Sowmya Rajan and Katie Flowers share insights from a recent white paper analyzing how these organizations have adapted, assessing four groups' choices and exploring the lessons learned.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Three Common Mistakes Startups Make When Running Lean Experiments – And How To Avoid Them
Reaching product-market fit is critical to growing a startup, but the process can be chaotic, as founders must solve multiple problems at once. But while planning and strategizing can address some of these issues, Akansha Kasera and Malika Anand at Catalyst Fund argue that the most robust solutions come from experiments and iterations. They explore the lean experimentation approach used by Catalyst Fund's portfolio companies, share a free product-market fit toolkit that can guide experiment design — and highlight three mistakes to avoid during this crucial process.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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Press Release: Inaccurate Solar Production Estimates Impact All Players in the African Power Value Chain
CrossBoundary Energy has released a report, Measuring Solar Irradiation in Africa: A case for change which shows how the biases in the estimation of solar production in Africa can lead to reduction in savings for African businesses.
- Categories
- Energy, Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: Tideline Publishes Guide to Using the Impact Investment Label
Tideline's 'Framework for Impact Labeling' helps investors communicate their approach to sustainable investing.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment, Investing
- Region
- Global
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Improving the Outcomes-Readiness of Implementors – A Key Step Towards Scaling Results-Based Financing
With less than a decade left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the development financing gap has widened. According to Gagandeep Nanda at Dalberg and Dhun Davar and Sietse Wouters at UBS Optimus Foundation, results-based financing can provide a solution. But though organizations have high interest in participating in results-based financing, many are not ready to take on funding that is tied to outcomes instead of inputs and activities. They share five characteristics of effective outcomes-ready implementing organizations, and five ways these groups can be set up for success.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Mitsui & Co Invests in Biomass Supply Chain Manager Punjab Renewable Energy Systems
The growth of PRESPL will contribute significantly to reducing air pollution and carbon emissions in India by effectively using agricultural residues as a fuel-stock for the bio-energy
- Categories
- Energy, Impact Assessment
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- renewable energy
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Monitoring and Evaluation in E-Learning: Five M&E Practices to Measure and Boost the Impact of Online Education Programs
Educational institutions, businesses, nonprofits and other organizations have turned to e-learning during the COVID-19 crisis, and these approaches are likely to remain prevalent in a post-pandemic world. According to Yaquta Kanchwala Fatehi of the William Davidson Institute and Salma Elbeblawi of Soliya, virtual exchange is an area of particular interest and innovation within the broader online education space. They share five key monitoring and evaluation insights that can strengthen these programs in real time – and that can be applied to a variety of e-learning programs.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment, Technology
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