In a packed auditorium in Colorado, Christian leaders convene to discuss a radical idea, wealth as a tool for virtue. At the 2025 Christian Institutional Investors conference, delegates hear a college president describe investing as working “in God’s vineyard,” using God-given talents to “bear fruit for his kingdom”. Christianity’s relationship with money has always been a delicate balance between earthly riches and heavenly ideals. For centuries, churches and monasteries wer

Dhaka and Dakar: In factory lofts and open-air markets from Dhaka to Dakar, women are rewriting economic rules. Across the emerging world, female entrepreneurs and workers represent a vast untapped engine of growth. In South Asia, only 32% of working-age women participate in the labour force, compared to 77% of men. Social norms and lack of childcare push many to leave work after marriage, as seen in India’s persistently low female employment. This female labour gap is not ju

Lagos and Lahore: In the bustling streets of Lagos and the villages of Lahore, a youth boom is underway. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are home to the world’s youngest populations, with over half of South Asians under 24, and Africa’s median age just 19.7. By 2050, sub-Saharan Africa’s population will soar from 1.5 to 2.5 billion, swelling its workforce by more than 600 million, fully one third of the world’s youth. This demographic dividend presents a historic opportunit

When Pakistan was devastated by floods in 2022, it appealed for international climate aid and much of what arrived were loans, piling more debt onto an already fragile economy. This scenario highlights a fraught issue in climate negotiations; the politics of concessionality, or how generous (grant-based) versus burdensome (loan-based) climate finance should be. Developing countries argue that climate funds, especially for adaptation and disaster recovery, should come mainly a

Not long ago, big foundations tackled climate change mainly by funding ‘green’ projects or NGOs outright. Now they are just as likely to invest in a climate infrastructure fund – not for profit, but to absorb risk and entice others to come on board. Philanthropic capital is increasingly being used as a shock absorber for high-risk investments in emerging markets, with the goal of mobilizing far larger sums of private finance. In financial jargon this is blended finance - usin

A searing drought in East Africa, a deluge in South Asia, a heatwave in Europe; the impacts of climate change are here. Yet the money to help vulnerable communities cope is lagging far behind the money to curb carbon emissions. In the grand scheme of climate finance, adapting to a warmer world remains underfunded while mitigation takes the lion’s share. ‘Money to help vulnerable communities cope is lagging far behind the money to curb carbon emissions’ Global investment towar

A juice entrepreneur in Kenya has more demand than her little factory can handle, yet she cannot secure a bank loan to expand. Across emerging economies, countless businesses face the same plight. These small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up the “missing middle” of finance – firms needing capital in the order of $25,000 to a few million dollars but deemed too big for microfinance and too small or risky for traditional bank loans. SMEs are engines of growth in emerg

For years, climate investing was mostly about cutting carbon such as funding wind farms, solar panels and electric cars. But as extreme weather wreaks havoc, a new theme is coming to the fore… helping society adapt to climate change. Building resilience to floods, heatwaves and droughts was once left to governments and charities; now it is attracting interest from profit-seeking investors. Resilience solutions span many sectors. For example: Early-warning systems for floods a