The new US administration sent shockwaves through the Global South by abruptly and brutally dismantling the world’s largest aid donor, USAID, firing 95% of its staff, and leaving partners and life-saving projects scrambling to exit while trying to protect the interests of their stakeholders, especially poor women and children. University of Ottawa professor Lauchlan Munro…(Read more)
Tag: environmental impact
Gender Lens Investing and Women’s Green Businesses
On November 11, 2024 in Dhaka, impact investment fund Truvalu and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation hosted a roundtable for bankers, impact investors and women entrepreneurs to explore ways and means of increasing access to capital for women-owned businesses addressing climate change through energy efficiency, clean energy, recycling or other green products and…(Read more)
A University-Based Non-Profit that Builds Affordable Rental Housing at Scale
Through successive replications of its mixed-income, mixed-use residential tower model, the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation has become Winnipeg’s leading social real estate developer. Featuring green construction and generous common spaces, 40% to 51% of each tower’s units are affordable while the rest are rented at market or premium rates. With the completion of…(Read more)
Citizens Confront Climate Crisis: A G78 Conference
The Group of 78, a Canadian non-profit promoting education and policy solutions for planetary survival, is hosting its annual conference in Ottawa on September 27 and 28, 2024 with the title of Citizens Confront Climate Crisis. Featured speakers will include leading-edge environmental campaigners, scholars, policy researchers, and an Indigenous Elder from the Ottawa-Gatineau region. For…(Read more)
Financial Solutions to the Marine Plastics Crisis in East Asia and the Pacific
A recent post by the International Finance Corporation highlighted an investment by Circulate Capital, a Singapore-based climate fund, in Union J Plus in Thailand, “a women-owned and led company that collects and recycles large volumes of domestic plastic waste in Thailand and converts it primarily into premium, food-grade polyolefin plastic”. The injection of capital “will…(Read more)
Plastics Circularity Investment Tracker Identifies $160B in Private Investments
In early November 2023, The Circulate Initiative, a US non-profit, published the key global findings of its Plastics Circularity Investment Tracker, an online tool for investors. For the period 2018-2023, the tracker identified 3,700 investment deals around the world and USD 160 B worth of investments in upstream and downstream products and services, including materials,…(Read more)
China-Singapore Green Finance Task Force
In climate finance for the global transition to clean energy, one of the most significant events of 2023 has been the establishment of the China-Singapore Green Finance Task Force. The group is chaired by Dr. Ma Jun, Chair of the China Green Finance Committee, and Ms. Gillian Tan, Assistant Managing Director and Chief Sustainability Officer…(Read more)
Renewables Save $.5B in Fuel Costs in 2022
A new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) finds that: “the renewable power added in 2022 reduced the fuel bill of the electricity sector worldwide. New capacity added since 2000 reduced the electricity sector fuel bill in 2022 by at least USD 520 billion.” IRENA’s Director-General, Francesco La Camera, said: “There is no…(Read more)
New Public Sector Index: Measuring the Capabilities of Local Governments to Solve Critical Challenges
Writing in Project Syndicate, Mariana Mazzucato of University College London and James Anderson of Bloomberg Philanthropies introduce their project to develop a new public sector index of the capabilities of cities to solve critical challenges. “What critical skills, processes, and structures”, the authors write, “will a given municipality need in order to detect emergent issues…(Read more)
A Just Energy Partnership for Senegal
One of the concrete wins for the Global South at the Macron-Motley Climate Finance in late June 2023 in Pairs was the announcement by the European Union and other development partners of a Euro 2.5 B Just Energy Partnership for Senegal. “This partnership will help accelerate the deployment of renewable energies, so as to increase…(Read more)