If there is one sector in India that has witnessed visible, drastic change in the 21st century, it has to be that of sports. Consider this- at the turn of the century, India was considered as a one-sport nation, namely, a cricketing nation. Even in cricket, India was for most part, an “alsoran”. If you were to read any media coverage of India’s sports sector in the 90s and the early 2000s, you would notice an oft-repeated lament that Cricket in India grabbed all the eyeballs and investments, and all other sports were in a state of poverty. While much of the lament was true then, the narrative has been changing slowly, yet progressively over the last 25 years. 

This White Paper explores how such multi-stakeholder collaboration, matching and funding can happen. In answering the “how”, we have discussed various blended finance approaches case studies derived from their deployment in other social sectors, which could be adapted and deployed for raising funding within the sporting ecosystem, be it for building sporting infrastructure or for developing community sport or for achieving Olympic/Paralympic glory. Within the Indian context, the advent of the Social Stock Exchange provides for yet another exciting social financing mechanism to be explored in the days ahead. We also provide two recent example of Social Stock Exchange listings for readers to assess this platform’s potential.

In her 2019 budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the Social Stock Exchange initiative, which has since attracted considerable attention in the development sphere. Designed to foster inclusivity and adaptability within capital markets, India launched its Social Stock Exchange, the fourth functioning exchange in the world.

The Social Stock Exchange challenges the issue of inconsistent funding and transparency, by connecting Not-for-Profit Organisations (NPOs) with socially conscious investors through various financial instruments. The exchange serves as a centralised hub for channelling resources to social enterprises and fostering impactful development initiatives. This is facilitated by deploying consistent funding frameworks, diversifying funding sources, and enhancing impact measurement, disclosure, and reporting practices. Through promoting transparency, the exchange cultivates a disclosure-driven ecosystem, guiding stakeholders towards mutual progress. Registering and listing on this exchange can be an intimidating process.

This toolkit aims to equip NPOs with the essential knowledge and resources to navigate the SSE framework through a step-by-step approach. Leveraging insights from Unnati Foundation, the first NPO to get listed on the SSE platform, we segment the NPO’s journey from registration to successful listing into four phases. Each phase aids in understanding compliance requirements, forging partnerships, and embracing best practices

The Mastercard Strive initiative, in partnership with Business Fights Poverty, convened over 50 stakeholders to explore how to empower small businesses through digital solutions. The discussion focused on three areas: artificial intelligence and automation, access to finance and capital, and climate resilience and sustainability. This report highlights the five overreaching insights that this convening outlined that spans across all three areas to form a framework of principles that empower organisations looking to better support small businesses to navigate climate disruptions and economic uncertainties

Kenya's waste management and circularity sector is rapidly emerging as a critical area for sustainable investment. Across the ten sub-sectors and 122 businesses identified within this space in KOIS and ANDE’s Introductory Guide to Investing in the Waste and Circularity Sector in Kenya , four key sub-sectors have demonstrated particularly high potential for investment. Those sub-sectors are organic waste, plastic waste, wastewater, and integrated waste management. This investment guide outlines the complex landscape of the sector, highlighting critical financing needs and investment strategies. While detailed deep-dive guides have been developed to explore each of the four key subsectors, this guide focuses on the financial dynamics that underpin successful investments. It examines the varying financing needs across the different stages of business maturity and sub-sectors. Moreover, it highlights the key factors of success for waste management and circularity businesses, investment trends, gaps and opportunities for innovative finance solutions that could shape the sector. Finally, this guide provides insights into how investors can strategically position themselves and better catalyse investment to grow the sector.

This report is the result of a detailed study on ‘Regulatory Barriers and Levers for Deploying Foreign Catalytic Capital in Impact-Focused Enterprises, Funds & Facilities in India’ conducted by Desai & Associates (D&A) in partnership with Prime Coalition and with the support of the Lemelson Foundation. Overall, the study has the following key objectives:

1. Map the different financial pathways for aggregating US and European catalytic capital in India to support Indian social enterprises, defined as both for-profit and nonprofit enterprises with a social and/or environmental mission.
2. Assess the legal, structural, financial, and operational challenges of channeling capital via these pathways and identify potential solutions, including recommendations for possible intermediation to bring catalytic capital into India.
3. Develop a shared taxonomy for funders and recipients of catalytic capital, and create a public report useful to all stakeholders interested in bringing such capital into India. 

A key challenge in empowering women in extreme poverty through entrepreneurship is securing access to capital for business growth after training. Small and microenterprises often face exclusion from formal financial systems due to a lack of traditional credit data, guarantors, and financial statements, resulting in high-interest informal loans ranging from 80% to 300%. This report examines the potential of a credit scoring system using alternative data such as peer group (Chama) lending performance and business income to assess creditworthiness. The goal is to demonstrate that alternative data can unlock capital from local financial institutions for women entrepreneurs at scale.

Kenya's waste management and circularity sector offers significant opportunities for investors, driven by economic growth, increasing waste generation, growing regulations and innovations. This introductory guide is the first in a series that also includes investment guides that deep dive into each of the highest opportunity sub-sectors in Kenya’s waste and circularity sector: plastic waste, wastewater, organic waste and integrated waste management. These guides provide further information on trends, opportunities, policies and challenges, as well as further details on the main identified business models and their financing needs and case studies of successful businesses.

This landscape guide is intended to outline India’s current context in recycling and circularity, with a focus on the investment potential, opportunities and business models in the ten most significant waste streams in India. It provides a framework for how investment potential in a waste stream can be determined, which covers five areas that define that potential: market size and growth; investable start-up pipeline; product readiness; policy support; financing needs and gaps. The guide also includes a historical outline of investments and funding in each waste stream and outlines the roles and participation of various types of equity funders, along with the potential and participation of non-dilutive funding options.

The report by the Enrich in Africa Center (EiA-C) highlights the importance of funding innovation ecosystems in Africa to develop scalable solutions for local challenges. It analyzes grant funding data from 2020 to 2023, focusing on the nine largest funders active in Africa, and incorporates insights from interviews with key stakeholders. The report examines both the overall innovation funding landscape and specific funding for ecosystem support activities and organizations. It aims to equip funders and recipients with the necessary data and insights to create sustainable and impactful innovation ecosystems across Africa. EiA-C plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between funders and recipients by fostering connections and sharing knowledge within the ecosystem.

In Extrapolations, Mumbai in 2059 is depicted as a dystopian city where climate change forces all commerce to take place at night, with people relying on oxygen stations to survive the extreme heat. This grim vision highlights the severe consequences of unchecked climate change, underscoring the importance of climate adaptation. Effective adaptation should focus on maintaining quality of life, which requires urgent investment in adaptation strategies today. The report shifts focus towards adaptation finance, challenging the idea that it is solely a public good with little role for private sector investment. While continuing to emphasize climate mitigation, the report identifies areas where adaptation investments can yield both positive impacts and financial returns. It stresses that addressing climate change is not only crucial for the planet but also presents significant business opportunities. The choices made in the next decade will be critical, requiring unprecedented capital to scale effective solutions.