From Crisis to Opportunity: The Power and Potential of Refugee Lens Investing

Fiw Topics

Investment & Funding for Impact
Migrants

FIW Year

2024

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Summary + Key Findings

The session discusses Refugee Lens Investing, emphasizing innovative financial strategies to support refugee entrepreneurs and improve financial inclusion.

📈 Investing in refugee-owned businesses can yield high repayment rates, demonstrating their viability as borrowers. This challenges the perception that refugees are high-risk investments.

💬 Engaging local organizations in the due diligence process ensures that financial products are tailored to the specific needs of refugee populations, improving access to capital.

🔗 A coordinated approach among stakeholders is essential to address regulatory barriers, share resources, and enhance the overall ecosystem for refugee investment.

💰 Philanthropic funding can play a critical role in supporting innovative financial models and building capacity within refugee communities.

📊 Data-driven strategies, like those used by Building Markets, can help validate refugee businesses and attract more investors by showcasing their potential.

🌐 The refugee investment space is still developing, highlighting the need for ongoing research and evidence to support effective financial inclusion strategies.

🤗 Humanizing the narrative around refugees as active economic participants can shift perceptions and encourage investment in their businesses.

This session summary was AI-generated using NoteGPT.

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The moderator and panelists will share experiences, lessons learned, ideas for the future around refugee lens investing. They will discuss its potential impact, its focus on shifting the way the humanitarian and development worlds understand quality funding and breakdown the benefits of blended finance with a focus on business development and profits.

Session Speakers

Barri Shorey

Refugee and Disaster Initiative Lead, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

Barri Shorey is the Refugees Initiative and Disaster Relief and Recovery Program Lead at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, working with partners around the world to ensure forcibly displaced populations are able to access educational and economic opportunities, recover from shocks and integrate into the new communities in which they find themselves. Prior to joining the Foundation, Shorey spent 16 years at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) overseeing and implementing programs supporting refugees and displaced populations through the arc of a crisis – providing cash assistance for basic needs during an emergency and improving access to employment, entrepreneurship and financial services in more stable contexts. During her time at IRC, Barri lived and worked all over Sub Saharan Africa and the Middle East with a specific focus on curriculum development and private sector partnerships. Barri received a master’s degree in international education from the George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion from Colgate University.

Lev Plaves

Investment Director, Kiva

Lev leads Kiva’s work globally catalyzing loans to refugees and displaced populations, including serving as portfolio manager of the Kiva Refugee Investment Fund (KRIF). Lev joined Kiva in 2012 managing the Middle East portfolio and he originally was based in Istanbul, Turkey. Lev spearheaded the launch of Kiva.orgs work with refugees in 2016, utilizing the crowdfunding platform to demonstrate the viability of lending to displaced populations. Prior to Kiva, Lev spent three years in Palestine, where he worked for a multi-million dollar USAID project. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Wesleyan University and speaks Arabic.

Carolina Duran

Director for Latin America, Building Markets

Born in Colombia, Carolina Duran is an Economist from the University of Barcelona and the University of the Andes, with a Master’s Degree in International Relations and Public Administration from Columbia University, and studies on Social Change at Stanford University. With 20+ years of experience in the public and private sectors, Carolina has worked in Business Development for Latin America at Citibank in Bangalore, India, she has been an advisor to the Presidency of the Colombian Banking Association, and served as First Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, where she created ‘Colombia Nos Une’ (Colombia Unites Us). She was Executive Director of Corporación Ventures, an entity dedicated since 1999 to promoting the creation and growth of sustainable business projects in Colombia. In that role, she served more than 30 thousand ventures and supported 300 companies that generated more than twelve thousand jobs per year. Carolina was also recognized as one of the 100 leaders of society in Colombia in 2019 for promoting inclusion, diversity, and the empowerment of women in business. Carolina has channeled more than $100 million USD in VC to the Colombian entrepreneurial ecosystem through her multiple projects and initiatives — connecting the city of Bogota globally with countries such as Singapore, Spain, France, England, Israel, the United States, Mexico, Ecuador, Spain, Arab Emirates, among others. During her time in public administration as Secretary of Economic Development of Bogota (a position she held until 2022), she managed to put Bogota on the national and international agenda for its economic reactivation strategies, such as ‘Bogota a Cielo Abierto’ and urban development strategies such as ‘Distrito Innovaccion.’ She was awarded woman of the decade by the WEF (Women Economic Forum) in 2022 in recognition of her work as Secretary of Economic Development of Bogota and was honored with the ‘Iconic Women Creating a Better World for All’ award in 2019. In 2023, the Bogota City Council awarded her with the ‘Order for Entrepreneurial Merit’, in recognition of Carolina’s work in promoting entrepreneurial activation, digital innovation (and the inclusion of digital ventures as business incubators), as well as market internationalization, as strategies leading the digital transformation for the SME’s ecosystem in the city —as a mitigation strategy for economic reactivation in COVID pandemic times. Carolina is an international speaker, innovation advisor, and member of several national and international boards such as the Global Innovation Council. She is a Fulbright Scholar, Maguire Scholar, and Colfuturo Scholar. Based in Bogota, she is a mother of twins, a global citizen, and a digital nomad.

Wanji Ng’ang’a

Associate Director, Portfolio

Wanji Ng’ang’a is the Associate Director of Portfolio in East Africa. She has 15 years of experience in commercial banking, off-grid energy, and early-stage investing. Previously she was the Regional Manager in East Africa for Shell Foundation and led SF’s activities and strategy in the region. She was responsible for the end-to-end investment-making process to fund entrepreneurs across household energy, productive use, and sustainable mobility portfolios. Before joining SF, Wanji spent her time growing businesses in the off-grid lighting sector in various regions in Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific. She has worked with SunKing, building and launching their off-grid growth strategy across markets, stewarding four household energy brands to deliver revenue growth, with GOGLA to lead and advocate for more data-driven financial metrics for the energy sector and Biolite, as the VP of sales to launch clean energy products into East and West Africa. Wanji holds a degree in International Business Administration from the United States International University in Kenya, an Impact Investing certification from Oxford University, and is pursuing a Masters in Development Finance from the University of Cape Town. Outside of work, she’s a mother to a ten-year-old boy. She loves to read, explore new places, spend time in the outdoors, and support local businesses as part of a network of Nairobi Angel Investors.

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