I had the chance to interact intensively on the Development (Social) Impact Bond (DIB) for the past year, and I am summarizing here some of my thoughts. I wrote about the trend here few months ago. They are not “bonds” and this creates a lot of confusion every time the topic is brought up. The …
I just came back from India where I visited some current clients and prospects, mostly from the Microfinance space. The industry in India is evolving quickly, and I have hard time catching up even if I try to visit the country once every two months. One constant thing however is the Joint Liability Group (JLG) meetings, …
I want to share here some tips for entrepreneurs, fund managers and various intermediaries who are looking at Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) as prospect funders, lenders and investors. DFIs are not the typical financiers, and I wonder sometimes whether they really form a homogenous category by themselves. As a general definition, I would qualify as …
I have been looking at Social Impact Bonds for few months already, and their version for developing countries, the Development Impact Bonds. It is a sort of a “pay for success” scheme that also involve investors, who take the risk to advance/invest the money upfront. Total or partial return of their principal and earnings would …
I might be missing lot of reports and articles, and I am not really aware of the financial inclusion development in North Africa. Maybe nothing big is happening after all? Morocco has been subject to over-indebtedness and big repayment issues with micro-finance spinning out of control in 2007 – 2008, so investors are very cautious …
Although my discussions with small entrepreneurs in rural areas in India clearly showed to me that financing alternatives are really scarce, and that we do have impact by supporting financial intermediaries that focus on SMEs, a recent exchange with a Microfinance Fund Manager highlighted a relevant attention point to some adverse effects. “We might in fact …
I attended at London Business School, a lecture by Reshma Sohoni, founder of Seedcamp “the first European incubator”. The business model of this innovative incubator is quite simple: VCs usually spend a lot of time looking for opportunities, interacting for weeks with a couple of entrepreneurs, before making a final (and very risky) investment. Seedcamp …
I have just joined the team of AfricaSIF project to start the first forum of Sustainable Investing in Africa. The goal is to build a platform that gathers various stakeholders and investors, interested in promoting sustainability considerations while investing in Africa: who are the main players of the sector in Africa? What are the right ESG metrics …
Second stop: Egypt! Visiting Egypt, my first reaction was to assess the entrepreneurship situation, before looking into the social sector. I met business organizations and VC investors and asked them questions such as: do people like to take risks and start ventures in Egypt? How is the innovation process? How do you evaluate the deal-flow …
Impact investing is a strategy whereby investments proactively seek to create positive social or environmental impact beyond financial return. Increasingly, investors are investing in social for-profit companies in emerging markets to generate positive impact in sectors like education, health and access to finance. Over 100 dedicated funds have committed over $3 billion in assets to …
