Nexus' Leveraging Innovative Finance Together (LIFT) Program and Finance Solutions Map

Access to finance and knowledge are viable conditions for the success and upscaling of sustainable energy projects. Nexus for Development (Nexus), one of the many supported projects of WISIONS in Southeast Asia, developed now an online mapping tool for sustainable projects in Southeast Asia to find financiers and a knowledge sharing platform filled with beneficial informations for scaling up projects and increasing impact, assembled under the umbrella of LIFT. LIFT Program

The exchange project Exchange: Demand-Side Solutions to Financing Sustainable Energy in Southeast Asia (SEPS16) generally aimed to foster and support the upscaling, implementation, delivery and impact of renewable energy technologies in Southeast Asia. Based on previously existing knowledge and experiences, main goals for the exchange have been developed:

• Empowering entrepreneurs by peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange based on best practices
• Capacity-building for renewable energy entrepreneurs by providing specialized trainings on important topics in finance e.g. financial vocabulary, communicating business plans and building partnerships with the adequate investors
• Developing a platform for direct dialogue between entrepreneurs and investors for clearing out knowledge asymmetries e.g. risk vs. return, unfamiliarity with the technology, local context, loan structures etc.
• Establishing market connections to support implementation and delivery of low-carbon technology solutions in Southeast Asia.

, running surveys, tailoring the platform to target audiences and eventually presenting the developed platform to the stakeholders. Related to this, the project resulted in a two-day knowledge exchange event on 26th and 27th of February 2019 in Yangon (Myanmar), where the participants  from different social enterprises and SMEs across Southeast Asia discussed the results and findings of NEXUS. By holding workshops and trainings for strengthening the capabilities of entrepreneurs, bringing investors and entrepreneurs together and presenting LIFT to the audience, the event was a clear success. Over 100 participants representing 77 organizations from more than 10 countries across Asia attended the event contributed to intense networking, knowledge sharing and optimization of NEXUS’ knowledge and financing platform.

Based on these experiences and accompanying research and dialogue between the stakeholders, NEXUS gathered the collected data into an online visualization tool, the Finance Solution Map. The online visualization makes 125 existing funds accessible to the user, who is able to filter potential funding opportunities according to his/her demands for the project. Until this moment, this online tool is the largest directory of financing schemes in the field of renewable energy in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, while designing the Finance Solutions Map, the LIFT program has been facilitated, including all the initiatives implemented by NEXUS in partnership with WISIONS: trainings, workshops, articles, case studies, knowledge content, webinars, reports and the finance solutions directory. All of these intend to address the knowledge and finance barriers, and accelerate sustainable and renewable energy technology entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia. In order to deliver the Finance Solutions Map and the LIFT program to the audience, NEXUS opened the online platform on their website.

Altogether combined, you can find there the maps, other research outputs and information related to capacity building and knowledge sharing. In addition to the map, LIFT also includes financial tools and definitions, content, several knowledge materials such as case studies, reports, infographics, webinars and the financial insights articles written post-event that summarized the key take-aways from the training sessions.

Here you can find the Finance Solutions Map

And here the LIFT Program

To know more about the exchange program itself, you can click her: Exchange: Demand-Side Solutions to Financing Sustainable Energy in Southeast Asia (SEPS16)