Creating.Catalyzing.Connecting

The promotion of start up eco-systems, entrepreneurship and SME development more generally has moved on top of the international agenda as a way to create jobs and contribute to sustainable development. Despite increased interest, there is confusion around how to distinguish the vast variety of entrepreneurial activities, business models and enterprises in emerging countries. Similarly, little is known what works and does not work in enterprise development for different enterprise segments. Private sector foundation Swisscontact embarked on a journey to strengthen its capacities internally and contribute to the international debate on how this field can be best promoted. The development of a guidance document on entrepreneurship and enterprise development that segments the fields and defines eight high level guiding principles is part of this process.

The document has not been published so far.

The Finance Guide is an introduction to the basics of commercial finance and investment in the context of development cooperation.

The objective is to enable readers with limited or no prior exposure to finance topics to understand some key aspects in the public and private sector. Given the increasing importance of mobilizing private capital for development purposes, the Finance Guide is intended to provide orientation to GIZ staff when considering the role of commercial finance in designing and implementing technical-assistance programs.

In addition, when working with implementing partners or businesses looking for finance, the reader will be able to assume a more substantial role in supporting such local partners and entrepreneurs in developing bankable and investment-ready projects or businesses.

The guide is for internal use only.

F4C is a leadership program launched early 2016 in cooperation with the Impact Hub Berlin to make the nascent field of impact oriented investing and social finance accessible to a wider audience in both the D-A-CH region and internationally. F4C offerings included the implementation of several Finance for Change 2 day bootcamps between 2016 and 2017 targeting professionals from philanthropic and development organisations, financial institutions and business angels to introduce them to the field of impact investing.

Supporting the UK innovation agency Nesta with designing and conducting a comprehensive piece of research on how foundations and other innovation funders fund and support innovation. The focus is on the role of learning, risk taking and failure and we specifically look at innovation funders in developing and emerging countries.

A publication will be out soon.

Advised Danida, the Danish Development Agency on options to mobilise private sector capital for sustainable development. The work included a recap of the current discussion of key concepts in impact investing and innovative finance, an identification of critical issues based on a literature review, stakeholder interviews in Europe, the US and emerging markets and a review of more than 20 blended finance vehicles.

The report is available here and the annexes including fact sheets for various blended finance investment vehicles can be downloaded here.

Inclusive Business involve low income communities in the value chain. With our colleagues at Endeva we were commissioned by GIZ, the German Government Agency to explores demand by governments in Indonesia and Columbia for GIZ support to assist with developing inclusive business policies.

The Turkish presidency of the G20 in 2015 identified Inclusive Business Policies as a priority topic for its Development Working Group. IFC and UNDP have been tasked by the G20 to lead on the development of a Framework on Inclusive Business Policies that can guide further actions. We were commissioned to support the consulting team led by our colleagues at Endeva to support the development of the framework. The Framework has been adopted as part of the G20 presidency in 2014.

The G20 Inclusive Business Framework can be accessed here.

As Fellow of the German Mercator Foundation and the American Rockefeller Foundation at the Istanbul Policy Center at Sabanci University Turkey led the first major research project in Turkey on social entrepreneurship and social investment. The work included a major social and green entrepreneurship survey; the testing of potential investors’ interest (business angels, commercial banks, Islamic finance institutions, PE/VC funds, foundations etc) in various social investment scenarios; identification on necessary conditions by international impact investment firms and funds for engaging in Turkey; the review of legal framework; the development of options for engagement by government and other market builders; the convening of Turkey's first international impact investing conference in cooperation with UNDP.

The results of the research were documented and shared in various publications, newspaper articles and blogs, which can be accessed here.

Developed, designed and managed a training, mentoring and co-investment program for impact entrepreneurs, social businesses, intermediaries, social investors in Turkey supported by JP Morgan Chase Foundation. Co-trainer in 3 day social investment training with a panel of highly recognized international social investment and impact measurement experts.

The project aim was to identify innovative options to channel sustainable investment finance to an economically underdevelopment region in Kenya. Work included a review of financial service providers, their products and technologies to identify market gaps; the implementation of an enterprise survey to identify market needs for new financial and non-financial support; a review of international experience in public venture capital, investment fund design and management of funds for social impact; the development of an initial deal pipeline, advice on fund design options, a fund investment strategy and testing of investor interest.

A project report can be downloaded here.

Anja Koenig set up Social Impact Markets in 2012 to help develop entrepreneurial and market based solutions to development challenges. She is an experienced impact professional with in-depth technical expertise in impact finance, entrepreneurship promotion, blended value partnerships and a trained facilitator in social innovation, generative facilitation and systems change. She enjoys co-creating multistakeholder strategies and systemic interventions, catalyzing new ideas and connecting individuals and organization for greater impact.

Anja is probono jury member of start social, a government program to support innovative social projects in Germany, member of the Federal Initiative for Impact Investing Germany (BII) and co-host and facilitator of the Impact Investing Stammtisch Berlin.

She speaks German (native), English, French as well as some Portuguese and Turkish She is now based in Berlin, after living in London (UK), Nairobi (Kenya) and Istanbul (Turkey) as a long term resident and assignments in various countries in Africa, CEE, MENA, Asia and Latin America.