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First Circle Lands US $4.87 Million from Cathay United to Expand Philippine SME Loans
New financing gives First Circle fresh capacity to meet rising demand for working capital, business loans, and solar finance.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- business development, lending, MSMEs
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Understanding Africa’s Broken Climate Finance System: How the Missing Layers in the Capital Stack are Holding the Market Back
Africa needs roughly $277 billion a year in climate finance to meet its 2030 climate goals. Yet as Gagandeep Bakshi at the William Davidson Institute and Santosh Singh at Intellecap explain, with annual flows of $44-50 billion, the gap is considerable — and investors are pulling back just as the need for this funding is growing. Making matters worse, they argue that the problem is not just in the numbers, since beneath these totals, there is a thin layer of capital piling into a handful of companies and countries, while missing layers in the capital stack prevent the emergence of a more balanced market. They explore how this issue is holding investors and entrepreneurs back, and propose a more effective approach.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing
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Press Release: IFC Anchors Highland Central Asia Fund II to Boost Private Equity and SME Financing in Central Asia
IFC is investing up to $10 million in Highland Central Asia Fund II to increase SME funding in Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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Arm-Harith Secures $76 Million First Close for Climate Transition Fund
The fund, which targets a final close of $200 million, is designed to mobilise African institutional capital and accelerate investments in energy transition and climate-resilient infrastructure projects across Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Financing the Future: How Off-Balance-Sheet Special Purpose Vehicles Could Fund Africa’s Cleantech Transition
Across Africa, founders are tackling some of the world’s most difficult development challenges with cleantech solutions that require significant capital expenditure. But according to Julia Lawson-Johns, and Amar Inamdar at KawiSafi Ventures, beneath this wave of innovation lies a capital architecture that is still too shallow to enable the scale these firms now require. They argue that off-balance-sheet financing via special-purpose vehicles could provide cleantech enterprises with an alternative means of securing upfront liquidity to finance growth, and explore how these vehicles could power Africa’s cleantech transition.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Finance, Investing, Transportation
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Africa Jobs Fund Launched to Mobilise $100 Million Philanthropic Investment to Boost Workers’ Incomes
The AJF launches as a fund of Renaissance Philanthropy, the non-profit founded by former White House science advisors Tom Kalil and Kumar Garg to design and run time-bound, thesis-driven philanthropic funds led by field experts.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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South Africa Rolls Out Game-Changing HIV Shot Amid Funding Shortfalls
Currently, access is being hampered by two things: the fact the Trump administration slashed the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funding to South Africa last year, and the lack of a cheap generic.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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WFP and Government of Nepal Launch Innovation Accelerator for Climate and Food Security
The accelerator supports local start-ups to pilot and scale solutions across the food system, including solar-powered irrigation and clean energy solutions, digital advisory platforms for farmers, satellite-based insurance and climate data tools and market and value chain innovations for smallholders.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Investing, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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