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NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2024: Congratulations to the Three Winners
NextBillion's “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest has been a yearly tradition since 2012. The contest highlights 12 of our most-read articles from the past year and gives readers the opportunity to vote for their favorites. Here are our three Most Influential Articles of 2024, as selected by our readers.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Investing, Technology
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Press Release: IFC Partners with Sol Agora to Expand Access to Solar Financing and Diversify Brazil’s Energy Mix
Sol Agora is a fintech provider of long-term financing for micro and mini-distributed solar power generation assets across Brazil.
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- Energy, Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Press Release: CEI Africa Receives EUR 24 Million from KfW to Boost Clean Energy Access
This grant will be distributed across the various investment and grant windows of CEI Africa, offering financing for green mini-grid developers and companies in the off-grid solar sector.
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- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Announcing NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2024: Vote for Your Favorites by Jan. 5
As we bid farewell to an eventful year, it's time for NextBillion’s annual tradition: our “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest. Each December since 2012, we've selected 12 of our most-read articles from the past year, inviting readers to vote for the ones that influenced their thinking the most. Check out the articles in this year's contest (if you haven't already), and vote for your favorites: You can vote up to once per hour between Dec. 18 and 11:59 pm EST on Jan. 5.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Making Mini-Grids Work for Everyone: A Tariff Harmonization Pilot in Sierra Leone Reveals the Benefits and Challenges of Lowering Prices
Solar mini-grids offer a promising solution to energy poverty in Africa. But according to Tombo Banda and Lisa Kahuthu at CrossBoundary and Miriam Atuya, this approach has yet to gain sufficient traction, due in part to the challenge of balancing operational sustainability with affordability. If customer tariffs are set too low, operators lack revenue — but if prices are set too high, mini-grid electricity isn’t accessible enough to drive widespread adoption. They share the results of a pilot program in Sierra Leone that tested the impact of lower prices on mini-grid operators and their customers, highlighting the implications for future efforts to implement tariff reduction at scale.
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Subsidy and Synergy: How Philanthropy Can Complement Impact Investing More Effectively
The original goal of impact investing was to build out the funding spectrum between philanthropy and commercial investment. But according to Asad Mahmood at SIMA and Nanno Kleiterp, the arrival of private equity firms — promising scale and market-rate financial returns — has pulled all the sector's energy toward the commercial end of the spectrum. They explore the key role philanthropic subsidy has played in the development of emerging markets business, clarify some misconceptions about its role in impact investing, and propose some ways philanthropists and impact investors can better align their efforts.
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- Energy, Finance, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Press Release: Rockefeller Foundation Advances African-Led Energy Transition Solutions at COP29
The Rockefeller Foundation announced $US10.9 million for the African Climate Foundation; African School of Regulation; Clean Cooking Alliance, via UN Foundation, in Kenya; GOGLA; SEforALL, via UNOPS, in Zambia.
- Region
- Global
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Press Release: BP, Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies Join Forces to Help Increase Access to Energy
Despite ongoing efforts, progress towards universal energy access has stalled, particularly amidst recent macroeconomic shocks and rising energy prices.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Technology
- Region
- Global
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