Title of the Session: Multi-sector collaborations-Scaling social investment

Summary of the content of the session:

Organisations looking at scaling on a massive level need to consider all the building blocks to impact
at scale e.g. innovation, standards and business models for replication. Ecosystems need to be
strengthened in order to solve structural challenges at scale. A key problem with scaling is creating a
financial system to ensure continuity after initial investment and also ownership by local actors.
Moderator: Anna Birney (Forum for the Future)
Speakers: Jack Sim (BOP Hub and World Toilet Organisation (WTO)), Richard Gomes (Shell
Foundation), Kavita Prakash-Mani (Grow Asia, World Economic Forum), Jacqui Dixon (Group CSR and
Sustainability Manager, Pacific Andes)
Anna Birney:
Forum for the Future is trying to address massive social and environmental challenges. Many get
stuck at the beginning and research, invest in social enterprise and then sometimes get stuck. The
big challenge is how do we scale up and achieve massive impact.
There may be a role for business, the foundations in all their guises have an impact too.
What are the building blocks that address impact? Product and service innovation, create standards
and ratings, develop business models for replication, increase access to solutions i.e. how to get
product and service to people and also to use technology to help scale, create end user demand e.g.
sanitation - understand behaviour to ensure usage, reshape the supply chain. These are the 6
building blocks. The last two are advocate an enabling context, create catalysing platforms. How do
we move beyond individual solutions?
Richard Gomes:
3 core areas for Shell is access to energy. The issue affects 2 billion people. 1.3 billion have no access
at all to affordable energy. Half of the people in Africa are going to school without electricity. 2.4%
GDP in Africa lost to energy inefficiencies. Most of the capital is going into grid extension. Not
necessarily helpful for people in rural areas. Shell Foundation is working on the former. There have
been products in last 15 years. Cook stoves, PAYG energy, etc. The market CAN be served with
cleaner and more affordable energy. The issue is the sheer size of the problem. Few of the
organisations working in this space have reached any kind of scale. Its a systemic problem and it
needs a systemic solution.
At Shell over past 15 years they have identified six structural barriers to growth.
1. Sheer level of support that early stage pioneers can achieve.
2. The nature of bottom of pyramid demand is that they are risk averse and they are harsh
assessors of value.
3. Really significant value chain issues related to demand creations, affordability that no one
organisation can address. Economics dont make sense so how do you leverage corporate
support?
4. Huge talent shortage. How can they find people to work in these industries?

5.
6.

The need for financial investment.

Policy, standards and regulation.

In order to solve structural challenges at scale the ecosystem needs to be strengthened. Need to coordinate, leverage, target and deploy resources in areas where they make the most difference. Need
the framework to support these markets and bring projects to scale.
Jacqui Dixon:
The UN food and agriculture organisation give stats on how much seafood we are producing. Around
90m metric tonnes comes from wild catch. Around 65m tonnes from aqua culture. Predict by 2020
we need 180 tonnes in total. Fish makes up a huge percentage of the animal protein diet across the
world.
Pacific Andes is involved in the end to end process and is integrated across the food chain. Primarily
they purchase from wild capture fisheries and also from farmers in SE Asia and India. 50% of shrimp
is farmed and primarily from SE Asia. Shrimp farming is booming, and has exceeded tuna as the
number one seafood product sold in the US. Good from a supply chain expansion point of view.
From an environmental standard not so good.
Right now the major drivers are coming from retail: Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour etc. All have huge
requirements on quality, sustainability etc and that fish is safe and from an ethical source and from a
well managed environment.
Those that can afford to get sustainability certification are the larger or medium size organisations.
So the small holders miss out. Pacific Andes is working with small fisheries to get them certified so
that they can work in the same circles. Pilots running in Vietnam, Thailand, India. Farmers are
grouped into clusters where there is one common auditing body and common standard and this is
easier to implement. Common seminars at processing facility to educate farmers. Easy to replicate
and roll out.
In small fisheries the farms are inter connected and so better to have the whole area included so no
disease spreads amongst any. Need to work at zonal level and working at a sustainable fisheries
partnership.
Challenges to scaling. Now that the pilot is running they should be able to tell in 6 months if it is
working. Others need to join so that they can get their suppliers to use the same process. The US
office that created the standard has little presence on the ground. No one in SEA to take
responsibility to continue the project. How can you shift awareness so that buyers only buy shrimp
that is certified? There is a retail and customer fixation on lowest price. How do we shift
understanding of the true cost of production? Small suppliers are hit worst from this.
Kavita Prakash-Mani:
500m small holder farmers that support food for the world but don't have access to tech, finance etc
to make them work better. Grow Asia works with groups of farmers that allows them to have
economies of scale. They can provide training etc that allows more access to government policies for
land rights etc and then so they can transport more efficiently and then provide products to end
consumers. All the different players from the value chain are needed. Also ancillary industries need
to provide better finance, insurance if they get wiped out etc. Need new solutions i.e. mobile tech to

enable aggregation at scale for the famers, e.g. weather, market info, disease and pest info. Need
government to step in and provide policies, infrastructure and the right links to markets and
international governments. Play your part in the chain but play together. They want to reach 10m
small holders by 2020 and also to increase profit for them by 20%.
Grow Asia is working with different countries i.e. Vietnam in 2015 and then to enable scaling of
projects. Whats the role of an honest broker to bring these people together? In theory although
they can come together in practice they do not. If no one is holding their hand and also holding them
accountable then it wont happen because its not easy to collaborate. Need patience and resource
to get these collective impact multi stakeholder projects to work.
Jack Sim:
Why are there so many millions of NGOs and so many thousands social entrepreneurs and lots of
companies trying to save the world but the world is not saved? Theres also the UN and the World
Economic Forum and why is it not working? The people are not working together. There needs to be
an ecosystem as in nature. This is how the planet has survived so far. If you look at the corporate
sector they collaborate to make efficiencies. However the social enterprise/NGO industry is the most
inefficient. Need to not think of the ecosystem as winners and losers but instead map everyones
strengths and synergies. Everyone has a role. Jack is creating the BOP Hub as a platform for all these
organisations to find a place where they can start to trust and match up with each other and
conduct due diligence.
Questions and Answers:
Question 1: What are the challenges of impact investing? The challenge is to be enterprise focused
and building ecosystem around entrepreneurs. Obviously for big organisations like Rockefeller
there is an existing ecosystem but how do smaller organisations go about this? How do we move
from enterprise level to large level solutions?
Question 2: First challenge is language between social and investment sector. Second challenge is
aligning interests. Desire for ownership and footprint from both sides and particularly if
established model exists and how to reconcile without losing integrity and original idea.
Opportunity to change is more limited and how do you provide incentive to investors?
Third challenge is timing. How fast can an organisation move to satisfy investor and social
enterprise or delivery agency?
Question 3: For organisations that fall between start up and mature, the challenge is to find the
right investors for the range that theyre looking for i.e. not $100m but $50m and theyre trying to
scale but need investment. What happens after small scale becomes medium size?
Insights from Jack: People are so busy and no extra hands or funding to collaborate. Collaboration
takes time. Need to fund a convener. People need to be incentivised. If a donor gives 100k in one
year to produce 100 widgets, but by collaborating you produce 200k of widgets. Then youre so good
and the beneficiaries will continue to give. Donor then more willing to invest in clusters rather than
silos. Ecosystem mother of all clusters.

Jacqui Dixon: Business has been part of the problem but business is also a part of the solution.
Working with business on agendas in the CSR arena can be so valuable. If you have an idea and
youre willing to take it to the CEO and sell it then you will achieve. Can move from idea to project
happening with financing and MD support within a short period of time. Collaborate with the private
sector and identify the right people in corporate and NGO to create the right relationships.
Richard Gomes:
1. Supply chain intermediaries who can address gaps in multi-sector
2. Financial intermediaries and financial vehicles that can provide different levels and types of
finance using government funding, grants etc within the same structure.
3. Institutions at a global level to provide regulation, standards, best practice, market data etc for
entrepreneurs, investors and for market investors. Foundations can play a catalytic role to create
these industries.
Kavita Prakash-Mani: Trust is so important. Someone needs to see and support the idea. If youre in
it together and can share the cost and the joint vision then that helps.
What are the financial mechanisms and how do you get the capital into these projects? How do you
get farmer based organisations to set up value added services? What financing steps in for what bit
of a project? These are all pre competitive space because theres no market to compete in as yet.
Looking at time, communication. What do we need to invest in time and capital?
Question 4: How has Shell financing changed to work with the existing model? Theres room for
different forms of capital at different stages by the look of it.
Richard:
For the first 3 years Shell found themselves deploying capital in a conventional way. There is actually
a huge need for grants at this level. Now experimenting with different uses of grants. Transitioning
from grant finance to non grant finance. Underpin investment in financial vehicles. Use grant as a
catalytic first loss capital. Started 10% of funding into different instruments. Be creative to use grant
to unlock other types of capital.
Jack Sim: Pre market investment so critical. Look at the internet. Foundations can work against this
because egos cannot have something to boast about for many years.
Question 5: What is the collaboration between Forum for the Future and Shell and Pacific Andes?
Really just to see the progress and look to them for examples. Also having third party like forum to
help find stakeholders. How do we catalyse collective action? How do we find where theres
opportunity for scale? How do we find the right people and players who are committed and ready to
do something new to change investment or behaviour. They are working in agriculture and other
spaces to find opportunities. Then they will see where there are synergies and how they can work
together and what innovative models and ideas can be transferred from one space to another.
**Forum for the Future is all about match making to take forward different kinds of actions.

Richard Gomes: We all like doing new things but actually this has all been done before. If you look at
successful innovations in the last few years, micro-finance, mobile phones etc, its possible to map
the key interventions of those markets growing. You can look at finance and market facilitation roles
and early corporate adopters. Forum for the Future is looking to model how these inclusive markets
have grown and how its possible to work in a more collaborative way.
Kavita Prakash-Mani: Its been done before but it hasnt been done together.
Jack Sim: Create a fund of grants for strengthening the ecosystem. Then the ecosystem will make
people collaborate. Why are we seeing each other as competitors? If everyone can copy then the
solution can go wide and far.