Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 7, 2019 – For the second consecutive year, Nexus for Development organized workshop events in Yangon, Myanmar, on the 26th and 27th February 2019, bringing together more than 100 ecosystem actors including financiers and social enterprises. The agenda focused on catalyzing access to finance for sustainable energy, water, and sanitation enterprises across Asia.
The training on advanced financial topics targeted to social entrepreneurs was followed by a workshop co-hosted with ANDE, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, to increase collaboration and foster mutual understanding between entrepreneurs and financiers.
During this workshop, Nexus for Development launched its Finance Solutions Map, the largest directory of financial schemes available for clean energy, water, and sanitation enterprises in Southeast Asia. Months of research and dialogue with various finance partners resulted in an aggregation of over 125 funds and financial instruments, which are presented through an online tool that entrepreneurs can filter to identify potential funding alternatives for scaling their business.
Other resources also available through our website include an overview of the financial tools and definitions that highlight key benefits and challenges from both the entrepreneur and financiers’ perspectives, with representative case studies. These tools are living resources and our objective is to ensure that they are reflective of the changing landscape.
This event in Yangon and the online resources are part of the Leveraging Innovative Finance Together (LIFT) program, an initiative made possible with the support of WISIONS of Sustainability who provided funding for our knowledge exchange activities and the research and development of the Finance Solutions Map. LIFT aims to strengthen the capacity of sustainable energy, water, and sanitation enterprises in Asia.
Nexus for Development looks forward to creating more opportunities to share resources and facilitate dialogue between ecosystem actors.