News
Gender and Power in Pacific Impact Investing: A Gender Lens Investing Case Study
The five-year Pacific RISE program, an initiative of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is building the impact investment market in the Pacific. The program, which concludes in July 2021, has promoted gender lens investing in partnership with nonprofit think tank Criterion Institute. The program serves as a case study in the “how to” of comprehensive gender lens investing, and has generated influential new insights and valuable resources for gender lens investors worldwide…
Pacific Possibilities for Impact Investment
In June, Pacific RISE Financial Analyst Jinita Prasad and Facility Manager Amanda Jupp co-hosted a Digital Talanoa with Pacific Trade and Invest Australia’s Leata Alaimoana-Roberts to discuss the Pacific Possibilities within Impact Investing. The session delved into the impact investing field helping participants to recognise the possibilities within the Pacific that create social change, positive returns and support businesses in the Pacific to grow post COVID-19. "Impact investment is less…
Adaptability, Resilience. Thinking outside the square.
By Belinda Roselli, Mammas Laef Vanuatu. Photo Credit: Mammas Laef Adaptability is a skill we all need to learn. The people of the Pacific are particularly good at this. Mary from Mammas Laef Vanuatu excels at this! In early March 2020, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic meant there was a shortage of the supplies of medical-grade personal protective equipment (PPE) across the globe. In Vanuatu, a local doctor thought that fabric face masks, in addition to handwashing, would help…
COVID-19 recovery in the Pacific – understanding power dynamics in impact investments
As donors quickly move funds to the Pacific to respond to the health and economic crises brought on by COVID-19, we have an opportunity to rethink how aid functions, and what role impact investment in social enterprises can play in the region’s recovery. Since 2016, Pacific RISE has been working to attract capital to Pacific social enterprises. In our work at Pacific RISE, we’re consistently finding the need to pay careful attention to power dynamics in social investments, including the gender…
Investing in women’s economic empowerment is essential for COVID-19 recovery
Photo credit: Good Return Women are key economic drivers in the Region, contributing to economies across the Pacific in a range of important ways. The advancement of women’s economic empowerment will be essential to leading a fast recovery from the impact of COVID-19, and to building a more resilient and equitable future for everyone. To date, COVID-19 has forced many European and Northern American economies to a halt. There is talk of a deep global recession, with significant job losses in the…
Empowering Tongan Business through Impact Investment
As first published on the Pacific Trade Invest, Australia website. Photo credit: Pacific Trade Invest, Australia. With extensive networks in the Pacific business community, PTI Australia collaborated with Pacific Readiness for Investment in Social Enterprise (Pacific RISE) to connect Tongan businesses to a new impact investment fund – supporting economic development and helping to stem the flow of people and skills from the region. Good Return has been working in the Pacific since 2005,…
World-first tool to assess the investment risk of GBV
Pacific RISE partnered with the Criterion Institute to design a world-first investment due-diligence tool for gender-based violence (GBV). Many studies detail the cost of violence for Pacific communities and businesses, but little is known of how these economic and social impacts pose a risk to investments. This GBV due diligence tool analyses four existing due diligence categories of political, regulatory, operational and reputational risks and shows how these can be affected by gender-based…
More investments in the Pacific
More investments in the Pacific Good Return recently announced that they have been able to support four loans to vanilla farmers in Tonga working with the social enterprise Heilala Vanilla. What started as a program to support vanilla farmers in Tonga after a cyclone, the Heilala Foundation supports sustainable farming of vanilla in the Kingdom. Using their blended finance model, Good Return partnered with the Tonga Development Bank to provide subsidized commercial loans to the vanilla…
Sharing the lessons from 2016-2019
Pacific RISE has been extended until June 2021. This extension will allow Pacific RISE to continue working on the investment pipeline that has been established in the first three years of operation. Pacific RISE recently completed a report that captured the achievements and lessons of Pacific RISE during the first three years of operation from August 2016 to July 2019. You can access this on the website. Also, our Fact Sheet has been updated to reflect the goal of attracting AUD $10 million…
Celebrating Menstrual Health Day 2019…..
How to invest so that women and girls in the Pacific can access quality menstrual health products Caption: Anne-Shirley from Queens Pads Anne-Shirley can often be seen scouring the clothing racks at the second-hand warehouses in Port Moresby looking for the right type of fabrics to make her reusable menstrual pads that she intends to sells to unemployed women living in urban areas. As her business grows she would also like to target other markets such as school girls. She created her…
