SOCAP 2024: Systems Change through Impact Investing.

The GIF team recently attended SOCAP, one of the world’s largest gatherings for social impact investors working to solve the world’s biggest challenges. The convention brought together an incredible mix of people from around the world including funders and innovators, philanthropy, government, education, media, finance, science, faith-based organisations, NGOs, creatives, nonprofits, and community leaders. 

The theme of this year’s conference was Catalyzing Systems Change, and was organised across multiple tracks including Deploying Climate Capital, Catalytic Philanthropy and Regenerating Food Systems. Here are five key highlights across these tracks that speak to the core of GIF’s investment thesis:

1. Climate investments are still not going equitably into places where they are most needed: Despite the data clearly showing the need, there are still major gaps in access to a range of capital for social entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries. Where capital does exist, it remains very concentrated around higher technological solutions, leaving other domains with few options for investment.

    

2. The sector must work together to debunk any myth that climate investing is too expensive. In reality, the cost of inaction is much higher, as recent reports by IPCC and BCG reveal.

    

3. Gender equality remains underinvested in, especially in the intersection between gender and climate finance. Only 2% of climate finance is going to women and of that, just 0.01% of global finance supports projects that address both climate and women's rights, as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has indicated.  

    

4. Those projects that are funded would benefit significantly from technical assistance. This should focus on helping them to understand better, and work around, some of the larger systems level challenges that exist, ensuring they can scale appropriately scale in the context of their operating envireonments.

    

5. The role of philanthropic capital is more important than ever: Momentum around investment in areas like climate change, gender equality, regenerative agriculture need require a blend of this type of investment. There is more work to be done to bring these investment communities together to double down on the most promising innovations and help them reach the scale needed to meet these challenges. 

On the surface, these challenges may seem overwhelming, but the energy from those at SOCAP reminds us of the incredible opportunity that exists to support entrepreneurs in emerging markets. We look forward to working together with a range of partners to meet the challenge!