Blended Value Investing: Capital Opportunities for Social and Environmental Impact

This paper is offered not as a fully comprehensive survey of the emerging area of blended value investing, but rather as a set of examples of how such investing practices are being developed and applied around the world. The paper's intent is not to provide a single answer for all investment challenges, but to demonstrate how groups of investors are mobilizing capital on new terms to meet the challenges of emerging investment opportunities, as well as the demands of investors seeking out new asset classes in which to place their capital.This paper presents innovations in capital finance that promise to bridge market-rate interests with strategic opportunities to create blended value that benefits shareholder and stakeholder alike. The following examples speak to an evolving capital convergence wherein mainstream capital markets and investing will increasingly become drivers of new solutions to historic problems. Blended value investing funds and instruments offer financing strategies a set of tools that go beyond traditional philanthropy or market rate investing and which complement the vision we all share of a world with greater equity and opportunity for its members.This paper also identifies several areas of research that would help advance the field of blended value investing. Finally, the paper concludes with words of caution that suggest a prudent approach to developing blended value capital markets. It offers a critique of the state of the markets, presents a strategic vision for the blended value capital markets, and suggests specific steps that participants might take in moving toward the ideal

Private philanthropy or policy transfer? The transnational norms of the Open Society Institute

The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a private operating and grant-making foundation that serves as the hub of the Soros Foundations Network, a group of autonomous national foundations around the world. OSI is a mechanism for the international diffusion of expertise and ‘best practices’ to post-communist countries and other democratising nations. Focusing on the ‘soft’ ideational and normative policy transfer, the article highlights the engagement in governance that comes with OSI transnational policy partnerships

Spatial Distribution of Poverty indicators in Ekiti State

This paper explore the use of Geographical Information System (GIS) analytical capability to analyze the spatial pattern of poverty indices with a view to evolving policies that will focus on ways to identify opportunities for intervention. The analyses shows where government can ascertaining the present state of socio­economic development and identifying poverty level at the community level, government can therefore deplore machinery toward. The data used for this work was extracted from the baseline survey report carried the Ekiti State, Nigeria. Data from the baseline survey was feed directly into ArcGIS software to analyze poverty indices. The resultant information on the socio-economic indicators were shown as maps. The original baseline data had a large dataset, which was reduced to seven basic sub-sectors which is referred here as indicators, which were, educational, health, water and sanitation, transportation, electricity supply, socioeconomic, natural resources and environment, where poverty was considered  as the main sector. The analyses of these indicators/sub-sector was ranked Very Low, Low, Medium, High and Very High on Ekiti State map. This will help government, donor agencies and NGOs know which sector or/and LGAs to be involved in and direct machineries to reduce poverty in such area