Jacqueline Novogratz

Side by side,

is a debt facility that is impact-aligned.

It's anchored with funding from the Green Climate Fund and others.

And again, that allows us to bring in more institutional capital above, including Shinhan, the largest commercial bank in Korea.

Thus far, 21 different stakeholders across the capital continuum, from grants to impact to commercial, have come together to bring a quarter billion dollars in financing to Africa's most challenging energy markets.

Now, making this happen hasn't been easy.

It has relied on the leadership, the courage,

and the competence of a whole lot of people, including in big institutions.

But that is exactly the kind of moral imagination that we need to rethink the way we approach investing.

Because it is just not OK to let financial risk have the final word.

If we're smart enough and careful enough, we can offset financial risk.

But equally important, what is the risk of not daring?

Leaving hundreds of millions of people in the dark and watching instability, emissions and migration rise.

It means cutting off human potential, possibility, creativity.

You see,

Risk is not just a financial concept.

It's an environmental concept, a social concept, and it is most definitely a moral concept.

And so, yes, we can structure the right kind of capital, but we need all of the players to go from asking, am I getting the highest return, to what is the problem we're trying to solve, what is the capital that is needed, and where can I play a role?

And also, if you take a long-term investor's perspective, think about the hundreds of millions of new electricity consumers that will need new appliances and new innovations and new services.

Completely new markets will emerge.