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Press Release: IIX Accelerates Gender Bond Issuances With Pricing of Women’s Livelihood Bond 3
Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) has successfully priced the US$27.7 million Women’s Livelihood BondTM 3 (WLB3), the third bond in the award-winning Women’s Livelihood BondTM Series (WLB Series). Advancing a total of 13 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the WLB3 complies with the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) Social Bond Principles and will support 180,000 underserved women and women entrepreneurs in the Asia Pacific region to respond, to recover from, and to build resilience in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The WLB3 is also the maiden investment of IIX’s Women’s Catalyst Fund, a next generation gender lens vehicle designed to accelerate innovative financial instruments for women.
- Categories
- Investing
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An Unlevel Playing Field: Why Small Businesses Face Disadvantages in Digital Commerce – and How Inclusive Tech Innovations Could Help
One reason COVID-19 has been so damaging to global micro and small enterprises (MSEs) is that consumers have shifted towards purchasing online – a change that has mainly benefited large corporations. According to Malika Anand at BFA's Catalyst Fund, making digital commerce more inclusive could help these businesses survive and grow in the long term. She shares research from Ghana that highlights several promising opportunities for digital commerce innovations that can benefit informal MSEs.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance, Technology, Transportation
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The Big Impact of Small Improvements: How Last-Mile Distributors Have Responded to COVID-19 with ‘Incremental Innovation’
Distributing beneficial products in last-mile communities has always been difficult, but COVID-19 has made it much harder, exacerbating many of the challenges that last-mile distributors were already facing. Emma Colenbrander and Gerwin Jansen at the Global Distributors Collective explore innovative solutions to some of these challenges, many of which have tended to be incremental rather than radical.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Technology
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South Africa’s Planet42 Raises $10 Million in Debt Round to Scale Internationally
The South Africa-based Planet42, a car subscription company that helps individuals ignored by banks to get access to a personal vehicle, has announced a US$10 million debt funding round to help it scale its operations and move into new markets.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Development Bank of Rwanda Spearheads Economic Inclusion Among Refugees
The Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD) has secured $9 million (over Rwf8.5 billion) from the World Bank to finance entrepreneurial projects initiated by refugees in Rwanda.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: DFC Announces Direct Equity Request for Applications
DFC seeks applications to invest in early, growth-stage companies committed to developmental impact
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: Is Bangladesh Ready to Move Towards a Cashless Society?
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the expansion of digital payments all over the world. Bangladesh too has witnessed robust growth in digital payments during the pandemic. The countrywide lockdown for more than three months has proved beneficial to such growth as people have become familiar with various digital payment systems.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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COVID-19 Impact on Women-Led Micro Business Widens Socio-Economic Gap in India: Survey
The adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on women-led micro businesses in India has exacerbated the vast socio-economic gap, finds a survey.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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