Innovative Finance for Sustainable Development

December 16th, 2015

Poor people pay a higher price for lower quality goods and service than consumers in wealthier markets.

For credit, municipal grade water, diarrhea medication, rice and a phone call, the poverty premium ranges from 1.2 X to as high as 53X for the residents of shanty town in Mumbai than those in a higher income area in the same city.

It is expensive to be poor

Potential Invested Capital to Fund BoP business

Source: JP Morgan,

Innovative Financing Instruments

Innovative Finance for Women Economic Empowerment

December 17th, 2015

Structural Barriers to GEWE

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread” (Anatole France, The Red Lily, 1894,)

Laws, policies and social norms are seldom gender neutral either:

• Discriminatory statutory and customary laws;

• Harmful social norms and gender differentiated roles;

• Disproportionate burden of domestic and care work;

• Gender-based violence.

These structural barriers translate into Unequal access to productive resources such as land, finance, technology, labor, markets, justice and information.

Removing barriers to Women’ Participation in the labor force

Micro-finance as the first innovative financing mechanism for gender

An increasing variety of innovative financing mechanisms

And an increasing variety of business models

Pay-Over-Time Schemes

• Challenge funds aim to mitigate against risks in markets where business innovation can contribute to poverty alleviation

• Leverage both innovative sourcing and spending

• Help women entrepreneurs pilot new business models to address the needs of women at the Base of the Pyramid;

• Help the micro-finance industry and banking sector develop new financial products to scale up for BoP businesses.

A Gender Enterprise Challenge Fund

From the Financial Deepening Challenge Fund