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Hijau Raises $10 Million to Scale Distributed Solar Projects Across Indonesia
Founded in 2017, Hijau develops rooftop solar projects mainly for commercial and industrial customers. The company follows a zero-capital-expenditure model, allowing businesses to install and use solar systems without making large upfront investments in equipment.
- Categories
- Energy, Investing, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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South Africa Secures $405 Million NDB Financing for Water and Healthcare Infrastructure
The scheme will involve extending and upgrading bulk water pipelines, expanding treatment capacity and developing water storage infrastructure.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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VC Firm Ventures Platform Closes Pan-African Fund II at $84 Million
The firm targets companies that bridge infrastructural gaps and promote prosperity by eliminating access barriers and reducing delivery costs across the continent by identifying companies that address non-consumption through market-creating innovations.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Indermit Gill’s Parting Thoughts as He Exits the World Bank
Outgoing World Bank chief economist talks debt and discord, while Germany slashes development aid and low- and middle-income countries search for bankable climate solutions.
- Categories
- Education, Energy, Environment, Finance, Health Care, Investing, Technology, WASH
- Region
- Global
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Analysis: Big Aid Is Over
"In Africa, governments have little to spend, and—in the short run, at least—these cuts are really going to hurt."
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Financing AI Transformation in LMICs: What Multilateral Development Banks Must Do Differently
Multilateral development banks have spent the last decade building the foundations of digital economies across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and the broadband networks, digital ID systems and other priorities they've financed are helping to make AI deployments in these markets possible. But as Kunal Walia at Dalberg Advisors explains, this funding often goes toward piloting individual use cases, expanding digital infrastructure or creating an enabling environment, rather than uniting these different components into holistic AI systems that aim to scale. He argues that multilateral development banks must rethink their approach to ensure that the infrastructure they've helped build can actually enable AI transformation.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
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Report: Mobilizing Electric Two-Wheeler Finance in Indonesia
". . . with the phaseout of vehicle purchase subsidies, financing will become an increasingly important driver of market growth to meet the country’s electrification targets of 13 million E2Ws and 2 million electric four-wheelers by 2030."
- Categories
- Investing, Technology, Transportation
- Region
- South Asia
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The Missing Asset Class: How Aggregated MSMEs Could Unlock the Next Wave of Impact Investing Deal Flow
Despite years of emphasizing the need to reach underserved businesses, the impact investing sector is increasingly focusing on lower-risk opportunities. According to Adanna Chukwuma at CARE, mature companies have drawn the largest increases in impact assets over the past six years, while funding to seed-stage enterprises has contracted — despite multiple financial instruments designed to serve the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in this segment. As she explains, this trend excludes a vast band of businesses with real revenue, real demand and real growth potential: aggregated MSMEs, i.e., individual enterprises that have joined together to contract and borrow as one. She explores the investment opportunity in these MSMEs, and calls for the creation of a new asset class around them, explaining how this could unlock the flow of impact capital to enterprises that remain systemically overlooked.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
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