Development finance

Despite a challenging funding environment, Africa’s economic evolution is opening up opportunities for impact investors, with manufacturing, technology and infrastructure among a host of sectors capturing interest.

The impact investment manager is targeting the funding gap for SMEs in emerging markets with its latest product, the BlueOrchard Impact Credit Fund.

In October David Grimaud took over the helm as chief executive officer of Bamboo Capital Partners. He shares his vision for developing a platform of vehicles to push each SDG goal to scale and to attract investment capital.

Can coffee made of lupine, chickpea and blackcurrant beans taste as good as the real thing? Dutch company Northern Wonder is working with agricultural researchers to make sure the end product resembles real coffee.

British International Investment’s most recent allocations target food security and electric vehicles. The institution says it is increasingly focusing its investments on fighting the climate emergency.

The company, which has just completed a second year of planting at one of its first projects in Sierra Leone, aims to generate high-quality carbon credits to help large buyers meet their net-zero commitments.

The impact and microfinance investment firm is collaborating with Bitfinex Securities to issue tokens that will be linked to capital raising for microfinance.

Lending by some microfinance institutions has had bad press in recent times, but the vast majority of those surveyed say the credit the sector provides, along with the associated wraparound services, are improving their lives.

The partnership will co-finance up to $500m of debt transactions to facilitate long-term sustainable development across Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

WFP BRIDGE, a newly launched funding mechanism, is now ready for capital from public and private investors interested in supporting SDG 2 – zero hunger.