DEG Impulse

🌍 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗗𝗗𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗧𝗮𝗻𝘇𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮, 𝗞𝗲𝗻𝘆𝗮 & 𝗥𝘄𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮: Our colleagues Lea Lippina, Niklas Fischer, Jelle Pentinga, CFA and Sven Witthöft have travelled our three #develoPPPVentures countries to select promising early-stage startups for the 9th cohort. As part of the DD process, the team spends one full day with the startups on the ground, talks to customers and investors to evaluate the businesses. 🔎 🏫🐟☀️ Thanks to being sector-agnostic, the team covered quite a lot of ground from schools, drones, Fintechs, fishfarming, renewable energy to fertilizer production. In the end, the team selected 13 startups out of over 450 applications for the next stage. More infos on them soon. On top of that, the team had the chance to meet with the existing Ventures portfolio and re-connect with investors and other players from the local ecosystem. ✨ 🙏 Big thanks to all the founders, our local partners Ennovate Ventures, ViKtoria Ventures & Impact Hub Kigali and to VC4A.

💛 💙 Wer sich am ukrainischen Wiederaufbau beteiligen möchte, braucht aktuelle Informationen und gute Kontakte. Gemeinsam mit der AHK Ukraine - German-Ukrainian Chamber of Industry and Commerce organisieren wir dafür monatlich die virtuelle Veranstaltungsreihe „Deep Dive – Successful Tender and Procurement Ukraine“. 🔎Mit diesem Format geben wir Ihnen regelmäßig Einblicke in aktuelle Ausschreibungen und Entwicklungen und erleichtern Ihnen den Zugang zu relevanten Akteuren im ukrainischen Markt. Aus einer monatlichen Auswahl von fünf relevanten Ausschreibungen stellen wir Ihnen eine Geschäftsgelegenheit ausführlich vor. 👉 Übermorgen findet die nächste Infoveranstaltung statt. Seien Sie dabei! Zur Anmeldung hier entlang: https://lnkd.in/esQFSG8V Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich gerne an unsere Kollegin Olga Mitskevych.

In a year of extreme monsoons, flash floods, and coastal disasters, Bangladesh is setting an example for emerging market banks on climate risk adaptation. Eastern Bank PLC. (EBL) has now completed a full Climate Risk Scan of their portfolio, gaining new visibility on how their assets are exposed to climate hazards. Climate Risk Services is extremely proud to have participated in this collaborative effort with EBL, DEG Impulse - a 100 % non-profit subsidiary of the German Development Finance Institution, DEG - and the Joint Impact Model Foundation. This project is a strong example of how financial institutions can overcome data scarcity and still make meaningful progress on climate risk management.  EBL took a proactive and practical approach to improve their data quality, which significantly enhanced the accuracy and usefulness of the scan results over two rounds. EBL’s approach to improving data quality for better climate risk insights:  ➡️ Prioritized locations with highest financing exposure  ➡️Pinpointed factory locations using Google Maps  ➡️Cross-checked with board-approved factory address records  ➡️Verified coordinates using public databases where available  ➡️Assigned unique IDs per province for multi-location clients The scan was conducted using CERO, CRS's climate risk scoring platform, which combines location-specific hazard data with sector sensitivity to generate granular risk scores.  The refined scan helped EBL:  ✔️ Identify high-risk clients, sectors and locations  ✔️Align with emerging regulatory expectations for Bangladesh  ✔️Identify practical use cases for credit analysis, stress testing, and disclosures This project offers a timely and practical example of how banks can prepare for changing physical environments, regulatory requirements, and a climate-adapted future. Want to join EBL in strengthening climate risk strategy?  Learn more about CERO and book a demo here: https://lnkd.in/dSV5Wh8q Rakib Hasan Rafi, Tanvir Hasan, Willemien van der Wielen, Peter Koczerzat

Tailoring the packaging of any product is essential to ensure it fits the social and cultural context of the communities it serves. Cultural beliefs, in particular, play a significant role when introducing innovations in rural areas. Last week, I learned something fascinating about people in Zambia’s Eastern Province: apparently, people there believe that if a pregnant woman is pricked by the thorn of a musangu tree (a tree now being promoted in agroforestry) she may miscarry. Insights like these remind us that successful interventions go beyond technical design; they require sensitivity to local knowledge and traditions. I often joke that when I visit my grandmother in the village, she’s far more likely to give me maize, groundnuts, and vegetables (a whole care package really) than to hand me K50. This speaks volumes about rural value systems and exchange preferences. It’s against this backdrop that, at ZEP-RE (PTA Reinsurance Company), we have intentionally sought to understand the end-user reality. Through select aggregator partners, we are piloting the use of grain as a mode of premium payment for insurance. This grain-for-premium initiative, co-funded by DEG Impulse, is designed to ease the affordability burden for farmers while promoting inclusion. We are learning a great deal from this pilot and look forward to sharing periodic insights on how such locally rooted models can scale to benefit smallholder farmers across Zambia and, eventually, the wider COMESA region. #ClimateRiskInsurance #Afforability #InnovativePaymentMethods

We’ve just kicked off our webinar hosted by The Living Income Community of Practice! Together with partners from Tony's Chocolonely, Asetenapa Cocoa Farmers’ Union, Better Cotton Initiative, Olam Agri, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, DEG Impulse, and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, we’re exploring how collaboration across the #cocoa and #cotton sectors can strengthen healthcare access for farming communities – and how this creates ripple effects for income stability, resilience, and gender equity. 👉 Join us live here: https://lnkd.in/dMgm6MfQ 👀 And keep an eye out for our recap post next week!

⁉️ How effective is targeted support for early-stage businesses in emerging markets – and what can we learn from it? An independent evaluation of #develoPPPVentures, commissioned by DEG Impulse, provides valuable answers. 🔎 Since 2021, the BMZ-initiated programme has supported innovative start-ups in Kenya, since 2022 in Tanzania and since 2024 also in Rwanda. The goal: to enable private investment that improves local living conditions through a combination of non-dilutive funding, technical assistance and strategic advice. The evaluation, conducted by WINS Global Consult GmbH and Southern Hemisphere, focused on #Kenya and #Tanzania and confirms: ✅ develoPPP Ventures is a relevant and effective instrument to support young businesses in East Africa. 💡 The blended approach helps close critical financing gaps and enables growth. 🤝 Together with our local partners we contribute to efficient implementation and context-specific support. 📈 Start-ups have reached nearly 4 million people in Kenya alone, created jobs and mobilised additional investment. A key recommendation of the evaluation is to further strengthen support for local start-up ecosystems through targeted networking, peer learning and market linkages. To this end, develoPPP Ventures also actively maintains close relationships with aligned initiatives and follow-on investors operating in this space. The overarching ambition: to strengthen investment-ready pipelines for both existing and new investors in the frontier markets where we operate. 🪐 This aligns closely with how we work at DEG Impulse: We believe in measuring, evaluating and learning – to continuously improve the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of our work and that of our partners. Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ), DEG ©DEG Impulse