The Ikea and Rockefeller foundations are making huge sums of money to launch a fund that they hope will be able to pay more than $ 10bn for small projects in an effort to lift more than 1bn people into power poverty.
Each of the foundations will provide $ 500m in risk and is expected to attract $ 10bn of additional funding this year from developed countries around the world, before opening up financial institutions to raise cash back in countries such as India, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.
“It simply came to our notice then. There is $ 1bn at risk in the future, and this could free up billions of dollars. We do not gamble here. We have seen it work in India. We know what it takes to be successful. ” Alireza, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, told the Financial Times.
Per Heggenes, executive director of the Ikea Foundation, said it provided “significant” opportunities to address the biggest threats to developing countries: poverty and climate change.
Investing in renewable energy has become big business in Europe and the US, but the Ikea-Rockefeller platform wants to do the same with smaller businesses in the coming markets. The goal is to create more “energy” projects – instead of generating electricity – especially as mini-power projects and less hydropower.
The foundation is said to have already signed an agreement with the International Finance Corporation, an organization affiliated with the World Bank, and the US International Development Finance Corporation and hopes that Ikea’s participation will open the door to similar institutions in Europe.
Their goal by the end of this year is to raise $ 10bn of funding from development agencies to go along with their first $ 1bn, and then to invite business owners to get back to their jobs.
Shah said he thinks the platform could grow to $ 100bn or $ 1tn using “capital as a lever for commercial ventures”.
He also said that from his day as a Obama administration official who was involved in climate change conferences in Copenhagen and Paris he saw “many donations made and good intentions but not killed”.
“This has the potential to be a very important, highly cost-effective, labor-intensive organization that tackles poverty but in the right climate.”
Heggenes said the Ikea Foundation – founded by a long-haired retailer that protect it from being compromised by investing in projects to address inequalities – saw the poverty of electricity as a barrier to the growth of poor countries.
The two foundations have set a goal of reducing 1bn of CO2 tons of CO2 emissions and lifting 1bn of people into electricity poverty by the end of the decade.
Shah said the epidemic had restored development in developing countries for the past 20 years, and there was a need to re-stimulate economic growth in a more environmentally friendly manner. “Now is the time to take action,” he said.
Source link
