As the world recognises International Women’s Day there are stories from across the Shell Foundation portfolio recognising the importance and impact of gender equality. Gender impact across markets and sectors Aavishkaar, a multi-product growth financial services group with a focus on India and Africa, launched its 2020 Impact Report on International Women’s Day, featuring stories…
Shell Foundation is supporting a transformative new platform to create a global market for distributed renewable energy. The D-REC Initiative is led by South Pole and Positive.Capital Partners and is supported by Shell Foundation (with co-funding from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), Good Energies Foundation, EnAccess Foundation and Signify Foundation. With over $500…
KEY HIGHLIGHTS Over 1,400 loans disbursed to finance electric vehicles (INR 10+ Crores in disbursement) 90% Loans disbursed to financially underserved (New-To-Credit) customers residing in Tier 3/4 towns and cities of India Founded in 2018, RevFin provides loans to underserved consumers, primarily for financing clean technologies. One example of this is Electric Rickshaw financing which…
Key Facts Charging hubs built in over 78 locations 156 female hub attendants run the hubs Increased the rate of customer adoption by 500% per location Jaza charges and rents solar batteries from a network of last-mile retail hubs. The batteries can be used in off-grid homes to power lights, mobile phones and small appliances.…
Shell Foundation are proud of the diverse ways in which our partners have stepped up during this crisis. In its recent newsletter, SF’s long-standing partner GroFin outlined a number of initiatives they have initiated to help their SME clients during Covid-19. These initiatives include: Developed a Covid-19 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) framework drawing on international…
Key Facts Served almost 5 million farmers with insurance and digital service across sub-Saharan Africa since 2015 Work with 40 insurers and eight reinsurers Developed yield datasets of 100k+ data points and adding roughly 30K annually Insurance products across >20 food and cash crops, as well as livestock Pula is reimagining agriculture insurance for smallholder…
Achieving energy access (SDG7) while tackling climate change (SDG13): Learnings and next steps post a proof-of-concept implementation It is a global responsibility to end energy poverty through access to clean, affordable and sustainable energy, whilst tackling climate change. Energy access acts as a catalyst for the growth of developing societies and economies. Yet, clean energy…
Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets are critical to driving economic growth, creating jobs and working toward the Sustainable Development Goals, contributing up to 60% of employment and 40% of national income. These SMEs face a significant financing gap, which is at risk of widening during the current Covid-19 crisis. Increasing access…
SF and UK Government partner CreditEnable, have come up with several new initiatives to support SMEs during the Covid-19 pandemic. SMEs in emerging markets are particularly vulnerable due to their often having little credit history, collateral or track record, and relying on capital from the informal sector. CreditEnable, which uses a global technology platform to…
SF partner GroFin in the SME sector recently released its 2019 Annual Report. In 2019, GroFin invested in 25 new businesses by deploying US$21m of growth capital to increase the number of jobs they have helped to sustain since inception to 89,450 and the Report provides an overview of the following: How GroFin uses different…