Social Finance Announces 2 Billion Dollar India-focused two Funds; Appoints Former Tata Leader Govind Sankaranarayanan as CEO
NEW DELHI, October 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
- India Education Outcomes Fund with a corpus of USD 1 bn to improve the quality of education outcomes India
- India Impact Fund in partnership with UN SDG Finance group, to raise USD 1 bn pool of funds to enable greater access to debt for education, agriculture, health, affordable housing
Social Finance, one of the world's leading impact financing platforms has announced the launch of two funds of USD 1 billion each for India (collective value of both funds USD 2 billion). The purpose of the first fund, India Education Outcomes Fund (IEOF) is to bring funds on scale to the best education service providers, with a sharp focus on improving learning and skilling outcomes. The second fund, the India Impact Fund will catalyse debt for impact in housing, health and education. These funds were officially launched at the Annual summit of the Global Steering Group on Impact in New Delhi, by Sir Ronald Cohen, Chairman, Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, in the presence of an array of luminaries including Former US Vice President Al Gore, Prince Maximillian of Lichtenstein and Former Tata Chairman, Mr. Ratan Tata.
This event also marked the official launch of Social Finance India, which, with these funds will be poised to become a major force in the impact finance space. Social Finance India, will be headed by Mr. Govind Sankaranarayanan, who held critical leadership positions at the Tata Group for over two decades, and until very recently was the COO of NBFC giant, Tata Capital. The Board of Social Finance India includes several financial sector veterans, Dr. Rajiv Lall, Founder MD & CEO of IDFC Bank, Mr. Ashish Dhawan, Founder of PE firm Chrysalis Capital and Ashoka University and Mr. Vikram Gandhi, Former Vice Chairman, Credit Suisse and Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Business School. Mr. Yuri Afanasiev, Chief Representative of the United Nations in India has recently joined as a member of the Advisory Board.
The Tata Trusts and Omidyar Network, two of the leading names in the philanthropic world have backed Social Finance India.
Details of the funds:
India Education Outcomes Fund (IEOF): The India Education Outcomes Fund (IEOF) is a unique outcome fund structure where a corpus of US$1 billion will focus on improving the quality of education in India and set up 'pay-for success' contracts with pre-determined metrics.
Some of the key target outcomes for IEOF include:
- Improving learning outcomes and numeracy for children in grades 1-3, studying in Government and affordable private primary schools
- Technology aided interventions to improve learning outcomes in subjects such as mathematics for children in grades 6-10 (upper-primary and secondary sections),
- Improving completion rate of girls till class 10 in Government and affordable private school
India Impact Fund: IIF is intended to be a USD 1 billion pool of funds which will catalyse debt to Impact Enterprises. It will help bridge the large funding gaps in meeting the UN Sustainable Development goals. The first Fund within the umbrella IIFF, will target equity funding for small lenders in the priority sectors as outlined in the PSL (Priority Sector Lending) - Agriculture, MSME, Education, Housing, Social Infrastructure, Renewable Energy. UN SDG Impact Finance group will partner with Social Finance for impact measurement. Subsequent funds under the IIFF umbrella will be designed to support the Indian Government's National priorities of 'Make in India', 'Skill India', 'Swachh Bharat', 'Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana' and 'Digital India'.
Dr. Rajiv Lall, Chairman Social Finance India said, "We are delighted to have Govind Sankaranarayanan, as the CEO of Social Finance India. Govind, who has led large complex organisations in the financial services space, is the perfect leader for being an institution that will use the power of finance to amplify social impact.
Speaking about the launch, Mr. Govind Sankaranarayanan, Managing Director of Social Finance India said, "It is a great privilege to be a part of this global organisation, and take forward Sir Ronald Cohen's vision of using finance as an agent for good. India is ground zero for meeting the challenges of the UN SDG goals and Social Finance India will catalyse different types of innovative financial instruments and financial intermediaries to help bridge funding gaps across a range of sectors. An important part of this effort will be the sharpening of our focus on outcomes and improving the sophistication of impact measurement."
About Social Finance India
Social Finance India, part of the pioneering global Social Finance network, is a new catalytic impact investment intermediary creating products for positive social and environmental outcomes in India. For more information, please visit http://socialfinance.org.in/
About Social Finance
Social Finance is a not-for-profit organisation that partners with the government, the social sector and the financial community to find better ways of tackling social problems. Since its inception in 2007, Social Finance has helped to pioneer a series of programmes to improve outcomes for individuals with complex needs. Its innovations, including the Social Impact Bond model, have mobilised more than £500 million globally. Social Finance is an FCA-authorised intermediary, providing advisory and capital raising services to social enterprises, charities and socially motivated investors to help them become investment ready. This work spans across a range of sectors including financial inclusion, education, housing, homelessness and unemployment. For more information, please visit http://socialfinance.org/
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