"This document presents ENERGIA’s four-year journey to create and upscale womencentric energy enterprises that sell safe, reliable and affordable energy solutions to low-income consumers in underserved areas. ENERGIA works with partner organizations in seven countries in an effort to develop and test new, disruptive business models and approaches that promote women as energy entrepreneurs. This document is a self-reflection, undertaken collectively by the WEE programme coordinator, the partner organizations and the ENERGIA International Secretariat. As a learning document, it seeks to analyse the various strategies with which we have worked in different contexts. It draws out common features of the most promising ones, as well as lessons from efforts that did not go so well, or even failed completely. Since documentation on women’s energy entrepreneurship is only beginning to emerge, wherever relevant, we have crosschecked our lessons with those from women’s entrepreneurship in other sectors."

"Now in its second edition, the Social Investment Landscape in Asia serves as a resource for funders and resource providers to assess the opportunities and challenges for social investment in 14 markets in North, South and Southeast Asia. It is designed to be a guide for new social investors and intermediaries looking to enter the Asian market and existing actors exploring partnerships as well as cross-border or cross-sector opportunities. Each market report provides a holistic overview of the current and emerging trends in the social economy."

"Social enterprises address social and environmental problems through innovative business solutions that improve the lives of underserved communities. They are businesses which trade for a social purpose, re-invest surpluses into their social objective, and make themselves accountable for their actions, rather than simply maximising profits for owners and shareholders.

The survey finds that social enterprise is a growing and dynamic sector of the Indian economy that is creating jobs for disadvantaged groups, empowering women, and addressing social exclusion across the country. This study seeks to expand our knowledge of the Indian social enterprise sector and has taken into account the findings of previous researches on the subject."

"Government, NGO, and business leaders typically see great promise for digital tools to empower smallholder value chains and make them more efficient and profitable for farmers. However, hope is not enough - new technologies only reach scale when they are delivered within a functioning business model.

To scale, the business model must provide a 1) Lifetime Value for each new customer which exceeds 2) the cost of acquiring each new customer. However, finding a business model which meets this requirement on small, remote farms is a tough job. Delivery and acquisition costs are typically high, and Lifetime Values low as each farmer's revenue is limited.

By observing the full range of solutions that have been developed across the ASEAN region, we see startups migrating to five business models which seem to show the greatest potential in reaching smallholder farmers at scale. This report provides an overview of those five business models, and why we think they show the greatest promise."

"This report was commissioned by Oxfam to analyze the effectiveness of development programs in addressing challenges faced by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the agriculture sector in Asia, and to dissect whether these interventions would be relevant for Social Enterprises (SEs) in the agriculture sector. The purpose of this report is to inform the decision-making of development programs that aim to catalyze the growth of SEs in agriculture and attract impact investment capital to fuel the growth of the food and agriculture sector in Asia."

"Global sustainable development challenges such as climate change or poverty cannot be addressed without Responsible Finance - finance that integrates social, environmental and governance concerns into the lending and investment decision making of financial institutions.

This study sets out a series of major Responsible Finance trends and identifies a number of key challenges and barriers for its further integration. The study is aimed at those interested in learning about the status quo, trends and drivers influencing business practices through lending and investment decisions in the financial sector internationally and in India."

"Resources to validate new sanitation technologies and prepare for market entry – prerequisites for achieving sustainable, scaled solutions – tend to be quite scarce compared to those available to scale proven solutions. As such, a problematic ‘Pioneer Gap’ exists. This funder landscape seeks to both clarify the ‘Pioneer Gap’ and point readers to potential funding and other resources poised to help fill this problematic gap. Two promising forms of funding are explored in detail: catalytic philanthropy and blended finance leveraging impact investment."

"This report covers the Indian economy and its infrastructure challenges. Its challenge is different to that of most other G20 countries. Instead of an infrastructure transition, India's journey is one of infrastructure creation. It has the option to skip the growth trajectory adopted by many other countries and move straight to an economy fit for the 21st century.

India is forecast to grow at seven to eight percent in 2018-19, the fastest rate of growth amongst the G20 countries. India is still amongst the lowest quartile of nations in terms of per-capita income. People's quality of life is held back by, amongst others, the country's inadequate infrastructure."

"This report is part of a wider study that aims to unpack the contribution of Gender Lens Investing in women’s economic empowerment, and builds on the existing literature on the understanding of the finance gap for women-owned enterprises in developing countries. It is based on insights gathered from 200+ women entrepreneurs across Kenya, Rwanda, India and Indonesia. While analysing the factors affecting access to finance for women entrepreneurs, the report touches upon its effect on their lives in terms of impact on their agency, bargaining power, ability to challenge patriarchal attitudes, and financial independence, through examples. The report posits a segmentation framework to bring out the differentiated characteristics, needs and challenges of women-owned businesses businesses."

"We study the effects of explosive growth in the Bangladeshi ready-made garments industry on the lives on Bangladeshi women. We compare the marriage, childbearing, school enrollment and employment decisions of women who gain greater access to garment sector jobs to women living further away from factories, to years before the factories arrive close to some villages, and to the marriage and enrollment decisions of their male siblings. Girls exposed to the garment sector delay marriage and childbirth. This stems from (a) young girls becoming more likely to be enrolled in school after garment jobs (which reward literacy and numeracy) arrive, and (b) older girls becoming more likely to be employed outside the home in garment-proximate villages. The demand for education generated through manufacturing growth appears to have a much larger effect on female educational attainment compared to a large-scale government conditional cash transfer program to encourage female schooling."