Emerging Market Small & Growing Business Capital Provider’s Survey Results
To better understand impact of COVID-19 on small and growing businesses and the local capital providers that support them, the Collaborative for Frontier Finance, with the support of Visa Foundation, conducted a survey of capital managers that target SGBs in emerging markets. The survey is a snapshot of this critical sector pre- and post-COVID-19 in […]
Closing the Gaps – Finance Pathways for Serving the Missing Middles 2019
The Collaborative for Frontier Finance and its founding members have produced a follow-up report to the “Missing Middles: Segmenting Enterprises to Better Understand Their Financial Needs” which identified four distinct families of SGBs each with diverse characteristics and external financing needs. The new report: “Closing the Gaps: Finance Pathways for Serving the Missing Middles” identifies […]
The Missing Middles – Segmenting Enterprises to Better Understand their Financial Needs
This report aims to help investors, intermediaries, and entrepreneurs better navigate the complex landscape of SGB investment in frontier and emerging markets. Segmenting the SGB market into multiple “missing middles” will help more effectively diagnose the distinct financing needs and gaps faced by different types of enterprises – and in turn, will enable the industry […]
Key Insights from the Latest Gender Lens Investing Report
Much like the larger umbrella of impact investing, gender lens investing — investing to generate financial returns and a positive impact on women — continues to grow. Exactly how big is this field, and how fast is it growing? Project Sage 3.0 has these answers. It is the latest report that collected data through 2019 […]
Funding women entrepreneurs: How to empower growth
“Funding women entrepreneurs: How to empower growth”, prepared by the joint EIB and European Commission InnovFin Advisory, provides a sound market overview of the funding landscape for women-driven businesses. It assesses the access-to-risk-capital conditions for these firms and analyses trends in venture capital funding for women-led and women-founded companies in the EU, the United States […]
10 ways to redesign venture finance for a more inclusive post-COVID world
Impact investing was created to revolutionize capital markets. Instead, we are replicating them. This needs to change. The good news is, the structures we need to reform the capital system already exist. COVID provides an opportunity for impact investors to step into a leadership role within capital markets, as the amount of private and public […]
Assessing Gender Lens Investing in Blended Finance
Over the past few years, gender equality has become increasingly incorporated in the investment strategies of impact investors and institutional investors, with its benefits recognized from both a development and business perspective. Convergence has consistently tracked the alignment of blended finance transactions with SDG 5 (Gender Equality), witnessing a number of blended finance initiatives aiming […]
The power of parity: Advancing women’s equality in Africa for the continent’s growth prospects
Africa has so much promise. The continent is home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies and offers an exciting frontier for businesses looking for growth and new markets. And yet, persistent gender inequality is limiting its potential. Pockets of good news do exist, but they tend to be success stories for women at […]
Supporting Women Throughout the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Emergency Response and Economic Recovery
This brief highlight evidence from the Africa gender innovation lab and other promising research on mechanisms that can help protect the lives and livelihoods of women and girls – at the household level, in firms and farms, and during adolescence – in the context of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. Citation “World Bank. 2020. Supporting Women […]
Now is the time for the world to rally behind women in business
The covid-19 pandemic is ravaging the world indiscriminately, but a combination of health and economic factors means the pandemic presents a particular set of challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. SMEs already face challenges in accessing finance and will undoubtedly face unprecedented challenges due to covid-19. Women-led SMEs are the worst affected because they tend to be […]