Arc Finance:
Arc Finance’s mission is to promote and expand access to financing for modern energy, clean water, and other basic needs to build the income and assets of poor people around the world. We focus on linking energy enterprises with financial institutions to put clean energy products in the hands of the poor. We are expanding into the water sector throughout 2009. Frontier Markets is partnering with Arc Finance to identify social energy enterprises and microfinance partners interested in energy distribution and scale.
Institute for Microfinance Research (IFMR) – Center for Development Finance (CDF):
The Centre for Development Finance is a non-profit action research think tank focused on improving government systems’ and markets’ capacity to channel finance into sustainable, holistic development. Founded in 2006 with a broad mandate to focus on improving delivery of public goods in India, their work addresses this challenge on two margins: First, they seek to identify and demonstrate ways to increase the overall quantum of public and private funds available for roads, water supply, telecommunications, electricity, health, education, and other infrastructure and services. Second, they identify ways to improve public and private sectors’ ability to invest money more effectively in public goods that contribute to inclusive social and economic opportunity. Frontier Markets has partnered with CDF to conduct market assessments to better compare energy products, identify market demand, and determine target consumers for products and commercial scale. We have completed our first assessment in AP and will continue on scale level for each state before beginning product distribution.
The Partnership was formed specifically to build platforms for cooperation, exchange, innovation, and project development in this area. We’re bringing together key stakeholders from business, finance, government, and NGOs for a singular purpose: to drive action. Our goal: we aim to provide energy access to 100 million people in Asia and the Pacific Region by 2015.