Redavia’s Covid-19 Resilience Lease is providing free solar to businesses in Ghana and Kenya. Reliable, cost-effective, and clean solar power remains a vital necessity for businesses, especially during this difficult time of economic uncertainty. Redavia, who we supported between 2014-2019 with co-funding from the UK government, designs, manufactures, deploys and maintains mobile solar farms, enabling…
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…
Koen Peters, executive director of the Global Off-grid Lighting Association (GOGLA) has written a blog on the GOGLA website detailing how they are addressing the Covid-19 pandemic for its 180+ members. “We concentrated first on understanding the size and nature of the impact, and what kind of help is needed,” said Koen. “Companies are seriously…
In these testing times, it will require a coordinated effort to ensure energy services continue to reach the low-income consumers who need it most. SF partner Energy Private Developers (EPD), who we have supported since 2016 with co-funding from the UK Government and USAID, to address local market barriers to energy access in Rwanda, have…
As the world adapts to a different operating environment caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, at Shell Foundation we have been working to formalise our response strategy to help our portfolio of social enterprises and institutions continue delivering energy and transport solutions to low-income consumers in Africa and Asia, and that the sector response is aligned…
Access to goods and services is a constant challenge for rural communities in Africa and Asia. These challenges have been exacerbated further by the Covid-19 pandemic. Waterbus builds and operates catamaran ferries for safe and affordable transport of passengers and goods, linking islands on Lake Victoria to the Kenyan mainland. Although rural Kenya is not…
In Uganda, Covid-19 restrictions have left many entrepreneurs in the informal sector struggling to take care of their families and cover basic living costs. SF partner Tugende provides asset financing, training, life and health insurance, and active business support to help MSMEs own their economic future. Tugende’s core product is a financing package for local motorbike taxi…
For smallholder farmers in emerging markets, access to products, finance and information is vital to improving their yields and income, allowing them to climb the energy ladder. Apollo Agriculture, who we have supported since 2018 with co-funding from the UK government, uses remote sensing, data science, and agronomic machine learning to help Kenyan farmers, backed…
The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of renewable energy as a vital resource, helping governments to protect their citizens and reduce the spread of the virus. Nayo Tropical Technology has showcased a timely and innovative response to Covid-19. Working with Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Nayo provided three off-grid solutions: A 10kw hybrid solar…
SF is supporting the African Mobility Initiative (AMI) to find start-ups and innovations addressing sustainable mobility in the informal transport sector in Kenya and Uganda. Through its Africa Transformative Mobility Accelerator (ATMA), and also supported by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) – with whom SF entered into a Memorandum of Understanding last month to…