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USAID Announces A New Development Impact Bond
Launched Thursday, the Utkrisht Impact Bond, named for the Hindi expression for excellence, will fund maternal and newborn health in the Indian state of Rajasthan. DIBs are results-based contracts, in which investors — in this case UBS Optimus Foundation, a grantmaking organization focused on improving the lives of children — provide financing for social programs upfront.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- impact investing
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Ford Foundation hires Swan to lead Mission Investments portfolio
The Ford Foundation announced today the appointment of Roy Swan as director of its Mission Investments team based in New York. Swan will lead a dedicated team managing the portfolio announced in April, when Ford committed to invest $1 billion over the next ten years in mission-related investments (MRIs).
- Source
- Press Release
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- impact investing
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Alibaba launches US$1.5 billion fund to help fight poverty in China
At a conference attended by the company’s 36 partners at its headquarters in Hangzhou, executive chairman Jack Ma announced it would set up the Alibaba Poverty Relief Fund, with the money to be donated over the next five years.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Zurich Insurance ups ‘impact investment’ target to $5 billion
The target forms part of a move by insurers to tackle the causes of climate change and other social issues for which they often pick up the bill, including healthcare costs associated with tobacco use.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
- Tags
- impact investing
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Press release: Dana K. Bezerra Named President of Heron Foundation
Bezerra offers a breadth of experience that spans the philanthropic and for-profit sectors. She joined Heron in 2006 and has been responsible for deal-sourcing, identifying and developing relationships across a spectrum of investors, syndicating capital when possible, and cultivating opportunities to deploy the full range of Heron’s “toolbox” (including grants, program related investments, and market-rate mission related investments).
- Categories
- Investing
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Impact Investing Can Be Profitable, New Report Says
Throughout the industry’s development, however, some investors have questioned the ability of impact investments to generate financial returns similar to traditional investments, and lack of data has left this question unanswerable.
Now a new report from the Global Impact Investing Network looks to recent research that it says has shed valuable light on what are appropriate and achievable financial performance expectations.- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing
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Press release: China consolidates position as global leader on green finance, says new research
The report finds that China – which put green finance on the G20 agenda during its 2016 presidency – is following through on its political commitment to boost the financing required to do this. The report looks particularly at progress since the State Council in August 2016 approved a set of recommendations for action on greening China’s financial system.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Viewpoint: Impact funds not scaling fast enough in India
There isn’t any doubt that impact investors such as Aavishkaar have made tremendous progress over the past decade since venture capital as an asset class returned in earnest to this market. Over the last seven years, 2010-2016, impact investors have put $5.2 billion to work across 485 deals, according to a McKinsey & Co. report in September. It wasn’t until 2010 that impact investments in India started to gather momentum and the last two years have been quite exceptional. Investments touched the billion-dollar mark for the first time in 2015 and scaled to nearly $1.1 billion last year.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
- Region
- South Asia
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