It’s possible to “design things right” and yet not “design the right things”. In a short report, M-KOPA Labs shares lessons learnt from developing its solar-powered PAYG Fridge and how its customers helped M-KOPA Labs to get the product “right”. Download the full report Everyone wants a fridge, right? Market surveys regularly record refrigerators in the…
Vineet Rai, founder and CEO of long-term SF portfolio partner Aavishkaar, has been appointed to a working group advising on the creation of an Indian Social Stock Exchange (SSE) and help channel funding into social enterprises. Vineet will join a 15-member panel and represent India’s private equity and venture capital industry. The panel also includes…
Globally an estimated 1.5 billion people live in smallholder households. In Asia and sub-Saharan Africa smallholder farmers produce up to 80% of the food consumed. As a group, however, smallholder farmers are among some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world – struggling with food security, energy availability, market access, training and climate…
As political leaders look to accelerate progress towards reaching the sustainable development goals, the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA) has produced more evidence to show off-grid solar’s role as ‘a power tool for change’. The new GOGLA report series follows last year’s ground-breaking Powering Opportunity research and confirms the positive socio-economic impact of solar home…
What is the Community of Champions? The Community of Champions – supported by GOGLA, World Bank/ESMAP, Shell Foundation, USAID/Power Africa, the UK Government and SEforAll – was formed as an opportunity for ongoing exchange between governments, the private sector and development partners to work collaboratively towards creating a supportive policy environment to help achieve universal…
As part of our continued strive to discover innovative technologies and business models that bring improved energy access, we have recently supported Bboxx – alongside our co-funding partner the UK Government – to launch a new payment platform that allows Rwandans to ‘send energy home’ from anywhere in the world. Friends and family can use…
The POWERED accelerator programme is part of the wider POWERED programme launched by Shell Foundation, the UK Government and DST Government of India in 2017. The accelerator programme supports social enterprises to expand their businesses and, by doing so, increases economic empowerment of women-owned businesses in the Indian energy space. This learning report was produced…
How does productive use biogas appliance innovation contribute to increased energy access, to rural livelihoods and to the development of biogas as a utility? Smallholder farmers are among some of the most disadvantaged people in the developing world, without access to technology, training and financing to improve productivity. There are an estimated 570 million smallholder…
SF partner and fintech finance company Lendable has recently hit $30m in money disbursed to non-bank lending companies across frontier markets. Lendable’s financing has supported the growth of SMEs and productive asset, consumer and PAYG solar finance companies across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana since 2016. Through these investments, Lendable has financed over 200,000 individual…
The Uganda Off-Grid Market Accelerator, which we co-created in partnership with Open Capital Advisors in 2017 with joint funding from the UK Government and USAID, has released its 2019 edition of the Uganda off-grid energy Market Map. The third annual edition is the largest mapping of the Uganda off-grid ecosystem yet, and includes separate editions…