January 25, 2018 | Dealflow

Climate shock insurance launches for small farmers

The team at

ImpactAlpha

Farmer Finance/Climate Finance

The credit program supports low-income small farmers when their farms are hit by natural disasters

The $10 million African and Asian Resilience in Disaster Insurance Scheme (ARDIS) is a credit program to support low-income small farmers when their farms are hit by natural disasters.

Funds will be used to boost microfinance institutions’ reserves so they are able to respond quickly with short-term loans for farmers when extreme weather hits.

The program is a partnership between WorldVision’s microfinance arm VisionFund International and climate risk analytics venture Global Parametrics; funding is provided by InsuResilience Investment Fund.

It is being rolled out in VisionFund countries: Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Zambia, Cambodia and Myanmar.

Eighty percent of VisionFund’s small farmer clients in these countries are women.

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The team at

ImpactAlpha

March 29, 2023

The Brief

Featured: Community Finance

How the U.S. can boost community financial institutions to counter bank consolidation and bridge racial wealth gaps. The collapse of Silicon Valley and Signature banks sent customers fleeing to banks that are “too big to fail.” Further market concentration could have devastating effects on low-income families, small businesses and communities of color that big banks don’t serve, Calvert Impact’s Beth Bafford and Pacific Community Ventures’ Bulbul Gupta warn in a guest post on ImpactAlpha. Minority depository institutions, community development financial institutions, and credit unions have been a lifeline to underserved groups. Bafford and Gupta call for government investment in market infrastructure for community finance. “Hundreds of private sector organizations are working hard to support community finance and improve economic outcomes for un- and under-banked communities and communities of color across the U.S.,” they write. “Smart government policies focused on market development for the common good can amplify and multiply these efforts, build wealth, and create jobs in our communities.”

Dealflow: Press Freedom

MDIF and partners democratize impact investing in independent media. Media Development Investment Fund has for 23 years invested in independent media outlets in places where a free press is challenged or threatened (see, “How impact investors embrace political risk to keep progress flowing”). A new bond issue from MDIF, Germany-based GLS Bank and its crowdfunding platform, GLS Crowd, is opening the investment opportunity to anyone in Germany. Proceeds from the bond will support media companies in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe where there are too few independent media voices, opinions and news sources.

Impact Voices: Social Bonds

Using social bonds to address gender and racial inequities (podcast). Corporate, nonprofit and municipal bond issuers are designating bond proceeds to support organizations that increase access to finance for women and people of color. Such issuance “could be increased in the market,” says SMBC Nikko Securities’ Philip Watkins, who hosted the latest social bond podcast from International Capital Market Association. Guests on the podcast included Anna Smukowski of Enterprise Community Loan Fund and Natasha Garcha of IIX.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

LeapFrog Investments names Rob Leary, ex- of Nuveen and Olayan Group, as senior advisor to Leapfrog's leadership team… Alex Bell, formerly with Tikehau Capital, becomes a partner at J.P. Morgan Private Bank to focus on sustainable growth equity… Enterprise Community Partners seeks a manager for investment communications in Atlanta.

Read today's brief