A new group of 36 funders active in the field of household solar in Africa, have come together to identify key priority areas to amplify sector impact. The Household Solar Funders Group (HSFG) builds upon the Scaling Off Grid Energy (SOGE) initiative founded by USAID, FCDO, the African Development Bank and Shell Foundation in 2018…
Mini-grids are essential to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7), which aims to provide universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy by 2030. In order to achieve this goal, 238 million households will need to gain access to electricity. It is estimated that mini-grids can serve nearly half of these…
WASHINGTON – The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and Shell Foundation (the UK-registered charity) yesterday announced a new collaboration to bring affordable renewable energy to more than 5 million people in low-income areas of Africa and Asia by 2025. The organizations recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding that enhances their ability to support the…
Shell Foundation is supporting a transformative new platform to create a global market for distributed renewable energy. The D-REC Initiative is led by South Pole and Positive.Capital Partners and is supported by Shell Foundation (with co-funding from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), Good Energies Foundation, EnAccess Foundation and Signify Foundation. With over $500…
HIGHLIGHTS Seedstars is a Swiss-based group with the mission to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on the Sustainable Development Goals. It does this by: connecting stakeholders; building companies from scratch with public and private partners; and investing in high-growth ventures within these ecosystems. Seedstars aims to…
KEY FACTS Nithio’s financing platform uses AI to understand consumer credit risk for households in Africa, unlocking scalable investment in the off-grid solar sector and beyond. Its model also enables “precision financing” to match commercial sources of capital to the customers with high ability to pay and direct grant support to where it is needed…
With the support of Shell Foundation and the UK Government’s FCDO Agricultural Research arm through the CASEE programme, Factor[e] Ventures has been building a world-leading portfolio of impact ventures at the ag-energy nexus while simultaneously developing key insights to move innovation at this intersection forward. In 2019-20, Factor[e] developed a programme of demonstration projects with…
KEY FACTS Signed up over 250 white meat merchants as agents (butcheries and restaurants) during 2021 Signed off-taker agreements with four fisherfolk cooperatives with over 2000 fisherfolk Ranked in the top 20 African early stage Start-Ups by the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) Keep IT Cool provides affordable, reliable and efficient cold chain solutions to…
How can the direct impacts of biogas support the achievement of the SDGs? How does this impact vary between different market segments? A new report – commissioned by Shell Foundation with co-funding from the Foreign & Commonwealth Development Office – analyses the contribution of biogas towards SDGs 2 (Zero Hunger), 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy)…
VentureBuilder has produced two learning papers outlining how they have continued to build an investment pipeline of locally owned and managed African off-grid operators, by refining its sourcing model and build operator resilience by adapting its business support offerings. Shell Foundation has supported VentureBuilder (VB) since 2019 with co-funding from USAID and…