Financing the Future: Strengthening MSMEs Against Climate Shocks in Emerging Markets

Fiw Topics

Climate Change
MSEs

FIW Year

2024

Transcripts:

ENglish

spanish

French

Summary + Key Insights

The discussion focuses on financing MSMEs to strengthen their resilience against climate shocks in emerging markets, highlighting innovative solutions and the importance of collaboration.

🌎 MSMEs’ Global Significance: MSMEs play a vital role in economic development, representing a large portion of businesses and providing significant employment. Their resilience is crucial for sustainable growth in emerging markets.
🔍 Tailored Solutions for Unique Challenges: Startups like Abaco and Payhippo showcase how innovative financing can address the unique challenges of MSMEs, such as limited access to traditional credit and the impacts of climate change.
🤝 Importance of Partnerships: Collaboration between fintechs and traditional financial institutions can enhance financial inclusion, enabling better access to capital for underserved MSMEs, ultimately fostering economic growth.
💪 Empowering MSMEs Against Climate Shocks: Financial support for MSMEs enables them to adapt to climate-related challenges, ensuring their sustainability and ability to operate effectively in adverse conditions.
📈 Investment Opportunities in Emerging Markets: Investing in climate-focused startups in Africa can yield substantial returns while addressing critical environmental and economic issues, highlighting the potential for impactful entrepreneurship.
🗣️ Listening to Customers: A customer-centric approach is essential for developing effective financial products that meet the needs of MSMEs, allowing for continuous improvement and scalability of solutions.
🌟 Fostering Human Dignity: Supporting MSMEs through financing and innovation empowers individuals, enhances their agency, and promotes dignity, aligning economic growth with social responsibility.

This session summary was AI-generated using NoteGPT.

Climate change is here, and its effects are being felt across the globe, particularly by micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in emerging markets. These businesses, which make up 90% of global enterprises and provide up to 50% of jobs and income in their communities, are crucial for local economies. However, they face significant challenges in adapting to climate-related disruptions.

Research by Mercy Corps Ventures reveals that MSMEs are often underserved in key areas such as supply chain access, market information, and financial services. This lack of support limits their growth and resilience. In response, innovative startups are developing tech-enabled solutions to break down traditional barriers. For example, Abaco in El Salvador provides financing tailored to SMEs needs, while Payhippo in Nigeria offers financial products designed for the clean energy transition.

Join us for an in-depth discussion on how these innovators are addressing the specific needs of MSMEs. Discover the tools and services being developed to support these businesses in their efforts to build resilience against climate shocks. Learn from the experiences of MSMEs that have used these innovations to strengthen their operations. Let’s work together on how we can collectively strengthen resilience in emerging markets.

Session Speakers

Natalie Vergara

Head of Platform, Mercy Corps Ventures

Natalie is the Head of Platform at Mercy Corps Ventures. She leads the delivery of value-added support to catalyze growth and scale impact for startups in the portfolio. Natalie has 15 years of experience in startups, consulting firms, UN Agencies and corporations. She has multicultural experience in Latin America, Africa and Europe.

Alejandro McCormack

Co-founder, Abaco

Alejandro is the Co-Founder of Ábaco, a pioneering B2B fintech providing loans to SMEs in Latin America’s frontier markets. With over a decade of experience in fintech, Alejandro has led innovative projects, blending his expertise in business development with a passion for inclusive economic growth. Known for his visionary leadership, he has built a reputation for managing complex initiatives and driving strategic growth. His journey spans from early ventures in Europe to founding key fintech companies in Central America.

Dami Olawoye

CEO, Payhippo

Dami possesses a diverse geographical perspective, having lived and worked in the United Kingdom and Nigeria. He has two decades of experience in lending and growth capital investments. He is also a chartered accountant, having started his career at Deloitte in London. Dami is passionate about pioneering solutions which enable clean energy transition in developing economies.

Jonathan Berman

Chief Executive Officer, Shell Foundation

Jonathan is the Chief Executive Officer of the Shell Foundation (SF), guiding the foundation’s strategy and delivery. He currently serves on the Boards of Factor(E), which invests in and builds de-carbonized solutions for emerging market economies; Asoko Insight, which delivers superior data and analysis on emerging market corporations; AIP Migo Money, which invests in emerging market payment solutions; and Technovation, an NGO empowering young women worldwide through entrepreneurship and technology training. Before joining SF, Jonathan was managing partner of AIP, a private investment partnership focused on emerging market digital transformation. He was previously Partner and Director of the global corporate practice at Dalberg, a strategy advisor with twenty-one offices worldwide. Jonathan is the author of the book Success in Africa (foreword by Robert Rubin), which President Bill Clinton calls “timely and important,” and Coke CEO Neville Isdell describes as “a great book” His views appear in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg and Harvard Business Review. Jonathan holds a BA from Yale and an MA from the University of California at Berkeley.

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