Blue Orchard's Alessandra Nibbio Bonnet & Valerie Harrington on impact investing
Uxolo’s Sam McManus speaks with Alessandra Nibbio Bonnet, Fund Manager, and Valerie Harrington, Associate Fund Manager at BlueOrchard Finance on their work with Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) to create blended finance structures to help support SMEs and the education sector in Africa during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Alessandra and Valerie introduce BlueOrchard on their 20th anniversary of impact investing and now being a part of the Schroders Group (00:55), how they work with DFIs and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in their blended finance strategies (03:25), the importance of adhering to the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) of the Article 9 standard issued by the European Supervisory Authorities as required by their DFI partners (05:30), how technical assistance facilities and other DFI structures including ‘first loss’ can attract impact investors to blended finance projects (07:18),
how BlueOrachard worked with DFIs to structure initiatives to help support their clients very quickly during the Covid 19 pandemic (09:55), supporting education in Africa (13:00), the DFIs they are working with in the successful second closing of their USD$ 200m Covid-19 support fund (15:39), and the future of the blended finance impact investment industry to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (17:13).
Learn more at: https://www.blueorchard.com/
