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Alt-credit and mobile-money apps give African fintechs a closeup view of climate risks – and opportunities. Financial technology firms have leveraged billions of data points across mobile phones and social media to transform loan underwriting for the emerging consumer class. In turn, data from those users is providing fintech service providers real-time insight into something else: the accelerating climate impacts on farmers and rural communities and the urban poor. In Africa, demand for climate data is growing across supply chains to underwrite micro-insurance for farmers and logistics operators, hedge supply-chain risk, and also create a variety of derivatives and other sophisticated products. “Fintech can supercharge the reach and affordability of solutions that have the potential to reduce the exposure of climate vulnerable populations and help them with preparedness,” says
The Week in Impact Investing: Action
The team at
TGIF, Agents of Impact!
Game stoppers. It was hard to turn away from the Reddit revolt by small traders, who outmaneuvered Wall Street hedge funds to wreak havoc in the stock markets. The action this week in markets for carbon credits
(see Agent of Impact, below), clean technologies
(No. 5), climate adaptation (
(No. 2) may be more consequential. President Biden’s executive orders on green jobs (
No. 4), health care and racial justice could have filled The Brief. Public pressure on
BlackRock helped spur
(No. 1).
General Motors swore off internal combustion engines (by 2035). Net-zero business models. Sustainable and inclusive investment theses. Tools to measure impact and promote accountability