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Wallace Global Fund to Spend Itself to Zero, Putting Its Entire Endowment Behind Movements as It Challenges Philanthropy to Pay Out More to Meet This Moment
Founded by former U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Wallace Global Fund supports people-powered movements working to advance human rights, defend democracy, and fight for a healthy planet.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Global
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British International Investment Reaffirms Commitment to 2X Challenge and Raises Gender Investment Target to 30 Percent Under New 5-Year Strategy
New UN data shows that 351 million women and girls could still be living in extreme poverty by 2030, underscoring the urgency of accelerating investment in women’s economic empowerment.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Global
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US Agency to Invest $155 Million in African Digital Infrastructure Firm WIOCC
Washington has increasingly backed telecommunications and digital infrastructure projects in Africa as it seeks to provide alternatives to Chinese technology providers like Huawei, including through a $100 million loan to U.S.-owned telecoms operator Africell.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Missing the Exit: The Growing Need for New Exit Pathways in Agriculture Investing
Exits make the wheel of impact investing go around, enabling companies to sustain and grow their operations, while also allowing investors to recycle returned capital into other impactful solutions. But as Coco Lim at Acumen explains, right now that wheel is not turning — particularly in agriculture, which has the lowest ratio of exits to deals of any sector in Africa. She argues that this situation puts impact investors at a crossroads: They can stay the course and hope that big exits are around the corner, or they can build the necessary exit pathways themselves. She discusses the challenges of achieving exits in smallholder-focused agriculture, highlighting the limitations of current investing models and exploring some exit strategies that offer untapped opportunities for impact investors and businesses.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
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Press Release: Gates Foundation Commits US$1 Billion to Help Build and Deliver Equitable AI That Improves Health and Expands Opportunity
New Goalkeepers Report: AI could be a great equalizer, but only if it’s built intentionally to benefit the people who need it most.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Global
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Proparco Invests USD $10 Million in Africa50’s AGIA-PD fund to Accelerate Green Infrastructure Development Across Africa
"Africa faces one of the world's largest infrastructure financing gaps, with annual investment needs estimated at USD 130–170 billion."
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PIDG and Impact Fund Denmark Invest $11.5 Million in Africa GreenCo
Africa GreenCo is a regional energy trader and intermediary offtaker. It buys electricity from renewable energy producers and sells it to utilities, private-sector customers and markets within the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). The
- Categories
- Energy, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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From Nano to Investable: Why Formalising MSMEs Hasn’t Led to Scale, and What India Can Do About It
India has achieved something remarkable over the past decade: Millions of once-informal micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have been formalized, and it is now easier to start and register a business, and access credit and government programs and markets. But according to Pranshu Chhabra, Rudra Midhun Kumar and Chiropriya Dasgupta at Quiver, over 99% of these enterprises remain at the "micro" level, and the overwhelming majority of them are classified as “nano,” a subset of the lowest level of the MSME classification. They argue that while India has become very good at bringing enterprises into the formal system, it is struggling to help them move into their next stage of growth: becoming large enough to attract formal investment. They explore this challenge, explaining why the transition from nano to investable cannot be solved by capital alone.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- governance, MSMEs, public policy, scale
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