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The Impact Sector is Confusing Satisfaction with Impact: Rethinking the Growing Reliance on Perception Surveys
Measurement standards in the impact sector have shifted toward perception surveys — i.e., forms that ask individuals to rate their personal experience with a program or organization — to quantify success. But as Juan Taborda Burgos, Jorge Bouchot and Miranda Hansen at Root Capital argue, perception-based metrics can mask a program’s ineffectiveness, potentially leading organizations to scale interventions that do not work. They share insights from a recent Root Capital report that reveal the downsides of relying solely on perception data, and offer four actionable principles that can help leaders navigate the pressure to demonstrate impact — while avoiding costly mistakes.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Viewpoint: The Economy That Remembers: Institutional Amnesia and the Regenerative Correction
Modern capitalism has perfected a hidden discipline: the systematic design of economic systems that forget. What we call “externalities” are not costs that disappear — they are consequences displaced. The regenerative economy, at its core, is not simply greener or more inclusive. It is an effort to build systems that remember.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Global
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FinDev Canada Proposes $33 Million Investment in BlueOrchard Initiative
BOCAMF is structured as a 12‑year private debt blended‑finance fund designed to channel capital into climate‑focused interventions across low‑ and middle‑income countries.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: Innovation Under Constraint in the Global South
For the impact economy, the central challenge is not replication but responsibility. If scale reshapes power, then impact-aligned capital must take responsibility for how that power is structured and where value ultimately accrues.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Region
- Global
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Proparco Grants Wema Bank a First €5 Million Guarantee to Finance Impact-Driven MSMEs in Nigeria
Proparco is granting a NGN 9 billion ARIZ portfolio guarantee (equivalent to €5 million) to Wema Bank in Nigeria. This marks the first collaboration between the two institutions.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Delta40 Raises $20 Million to Expand Venture Studio–Led Startup Financing Across Africa
Backers include development finance institutions, foundations, family offices, and 25 startup founders, with 14 investors located on the African continent.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: IDB Lab to Invest $8 Million in AgVentures III Fund to Advance Agtech Innovation
Fund manager SP Ventures' impact thesis is to generate social benefits for vulnerable populations by supporting technologies that democratize access to productivity and efficiency for small- and medium-sized farmers.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
- Region
- Latin America
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Press Release: SMFG and IFC Partner to Launch the World’s First Digital Inclusion Bond, Supporting Growth and Job Creation through MSMEs in Emerging Markets
This landmark transaction marks IFC’s first investment in a thematic bond focused on digital inclusion as well as its first investment in Total Loss-Absorbing Capacity (TLAC)-eligible instruments in the Asia Pacific region.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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