Social Finance

By Nadeesha Jayasinghe, Uniterra Volunteer, Lanka Impact Investing Network, Sri Lanka In Sri Lanka, Micro-Small-Medium Enterprises contribute to 45% of GDP. Yet, only 25% of entrepreneurs are women. Low confidence, limited access to credit, and lack of financial literacy are some of the barriers which contribute to low representation of women’s entrepreneurship. Here is the…

CANADA (July 24, 2019) — A new partnership between Brighter Investment, a British Columbia-based social enterprise, and WUSC, a Canadian non-profit organization working in over 25 developing countries, seeks to increase access to higher education financing for marginalized young women in Ghana. Since it first started supporting students in Ghana in 2015, Brighter Investment has made…

Optimizing Development Impact in the Global South The innovations of social entrepreneurs can create new, cost-effective pathways toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Canada and around the world. The overall aim of social enterprises is to apply business methods to solve social problems, including poverty, unemployment, social exclusion, climate change, food insecurity, gender-based…

Gender Lens Investing in Ghana, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam What is Gender Lens Investing? Pioneered by the Criterion Institute, a think tank based in the United States, and taken up and adapted by an increasing variety of actors over the past decade, Gender lens investing (GLI) is defined as “the incorporation of a gender…

In the forests of Sri Lanka, elephants are known to deploy a unique strategy to protect their young. In the face of a threat, adult elephants will form a tight pack, herding their young into the middle for safety. It was this imagery that inspired the name for Sri Lanka’s first reality show on social…

Impact investing opens new funding pathways for global development The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) chart an ambitious agenda for a more peaceful and prosperous world. But these goals carry a high price tag; it is estimated that an additional $2.5 trillion is required annually to turn this agenda into action. Impact investing presents a…

At the 2017 World Bank annual meeting, an important theme was the call for new instruments and tools to mobilize private capital to fight poverty more effectively across the globe. Indeed, beyond available taxes and development assistance, it is estimated that $2.5 trillion in private financing is required annually to fully implement the Sustainable Development…