It’s possible to “design things right” and yet not “design the right things”. In a short report, M-KOPA Labs shares lessons learnt from developing its solar-powered PAYG Fridge and how its customers helped M-KOPA Labs to get the product “right”. Download the full report Everyone wants a fridge, right? Market surveys regularly record refrigerators in the…
Vineet Rai, founder and CEO of long-term SF portfolio partner Aavishkaar, has been appointed to a working group advising on the creation of an Indian Social Stock Exchange (SSE) and help channel funding into social enterprises. Vineet will join a 15-member panel and represent India’s private equity and venture capital industry. The panel also includes…
Globally an estimated 1.5 billion people live in smallholder households. In Asia and sub-Saharan Africa smallholder farmers produce up to 80% of the food consumed. As a group, however, smallholder farmers are among some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world – struggling with food security, energy availability, market access, training and climate…
Smart Freight Centre, (SFC) a longstanding Shell Foundation (SF) portfolio partner, together with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, has recently released an innovative tool to support multinational companies in reducing the climate impact of their freight and logistics. The Smart Freight Procurement Guidelines will enable organisations to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air…
As political leaders look to accelerate progress towards reaching the sustainable development goals, the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA) has produced more evidence to show off-grid solar’s role as ‘a power tool for change’. The new GOGLA report series follows last year’s ground-breaking Powering Opportunity research and confirms the positive socio-economic impact of solar home…
What is the Community of Champions? The Community of Champions – supported by GOGLA, World Bank/ESMAP, Shell Foundation, USAID/Power Africa, the UK Government and SEforAll – was formed as an opportunity for ongoing exchange between governments, the private sector and development partners to work collaboratively towards creating a supportive policy environment to help achieve universal…
As part of our continued strive to discover innovative technologies and business models that bring improved energy access, we have recently supported Bboxx – alongside our co-funding partner the UK Government – to launch a new payment platform that allows Rwandans to ‘send energy home’ from anywhere in the world. Friends and family can use…
Off-grid energy solutions continue to take hold in Uganda, though 30% of the population is still expected to lack access to electricity by 2030. Affordability remains a challenge to the uptake of off-grid energy. Increased ‘productive use’ of energy has the potential to increase productivity and income, thereby driving further uptake in off-grid energy. These…
Today, the World Resources Institute (WRI) – an SF strategic partner since 2002 – launched Energy Access Explorer, a new open-source platform, leverages satellite imagery combined with 20 local data sets to visualise energy supply and demand in East Africa. More than 800 million people around the world lack reliable electricity; nearly 600 million of them…
The POWERED accelerator programme is part of the wider POWERED programme launched by Shell Foundation, the UK Government and DST Government of India in 2017. The accelerator programme supports social enterprises to expand their businesses and, by doing so, increases economic empowerment of women-owned businesses in the Indian energy space. This learning report was produced…