As an anchor investor alongside the US International Development Finance Corporation, British International Investment, a development finance institution, and impact investor from the UK, has committed $10 million to the SDG Outcomes Fund.
Vanguard reported that the DFIs will help launch the first fund for development impact bonds in low- and middle-income nations worldwide, including South Asia and Africa.
The Fund, which was established as a partnership with the UBS Optimus Foundation as the lead investor and Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, a specialized not-for-profit organization, as the fund manager, invests in impact bonds and other outcomes-based contracts that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals using a cutting-edge blended finance structure.
It focuses on crucial environmental, child protection, employment, education, and healthcare outcomes with the goal of enhancing the lives and livelihoods of some of the most vulnerable communities in the world.
This is BII’s first investment in development impact bonds as a top impact investor. The fund will focus on some of the most difficult industries and vulnerable neighborhoods in addition to providing advanced financing solutions that help the continent’s major development challenges advance more quickly.
In order to start and provide education and environmental services, SDG Outcomes made early investments in West Africa. The fund wants to make broader investments in South Asia and Africa.
Supporting the expansion of Wecyclers, a social enterprise that uses a franchising model to collect, sell, and recycle plastic trash. Over the next five years, Wecyclers hopes to collect over 30,000 tonnes of plastic garbage, increase the earnings of thousands of waste sorters across Nigeria, and create over 700 franchise employment.
“We’re hugely excited by the potential of SDG Outcomes to improve lives at scale and, over time, to transform the way in which development projects are designed and delivered,” said the CEO of Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, Mila Lukic.
The UBS Optimus Foundation’s CEO, Maya Ziswiler, added, “The SDG Outcomes program is one of the first of its type to deliver the scale so sorely needed to provide meaningful impact. By developing an investible remedy,
“We can assist our customers and partners in raising money from all sources, including philanthropic donors to public and private investors seeking both monetary and non-monetary returns on their investments.”
We are really delighted to be working with top-tier partners and developing an innovative and adaptable financing mechanism that is focused on delivering impact, said the director and head of PE Funds and Co-Investments at British International Investment, Sara Taylor.
She claimed that the initial initiatives in West Africa are in line with our aim to mobilize private investment capital to support communities in Africa and South Asia that are a priority for BII and offer patient capital to establish productive, sustainable, and inclusive economies.
