The Osiris Group, a frontier markets private equity firm making investments in Asia, and BRAC, the world’s leading organization dedicated to the development, poverty reduction, and humanitarian crisis management, have announced an impact fund partnership with an ambition to provide opportunities in education, healthcare, the digital economy, and access to goods and services, said a press release sent to FS.
Impact Investing, which seeks both financial and social returns, is becoming increasingly popular with US$228bn of assets managed globally in 2017. “We are seeing a convergence in the fields of finance and development. Global investors are increasingly looking to invest in sectors which make real differences to peoples’ lives. In countries like Bangladesh, as they move to Middle Income Status, there are many investment opportunities that will help people meet their aspirations to educate their families, receive quality health care, participate in the digital economy and access goods and services that were previously unavailable to them”, said Tanvir Ghani, Founder of The Osiris Group.
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC Founder, and Chairperson commented, “We are excited and look forward to working with the Osiris Group, sharing field insights and best-in-class investment methodologies while amplifying our collective impact across the communities we serve.
Asif Saleh, Senior Director of Strategy, Communications and Empowerment at BRAC commented, “The world is shifting from aid to a market-based approach. A new model for social change is emerging which challenges conventional development models that solely depend on philanthropic donations and charity. We are now in a world where the difference between development, social enterprise, and the private sector is narrowing, and we at BRAC see the importance of Impact Investment in the countries we operate in.”
“BRAC has been at the forefront globally in innovating sustainable development models. It's difficult to think of an organization that has had more impact on so many lives. Long before the term Impact Investment was coined, BRAC has been doing this in its own way for decades, funding the majority of its development programs through its own social enterprises and investments across financial services, retail, food, and agriculture. With BRAC's extensive experience scaling solutions in our core frontier markets, we are extremely excited to partner with BRAC", said Syeed Khan, Partner, The Osiris Group.
The Osiris Group, through its investments in Bangladesh and other frontier markets, catalyzes inclusive growth, targeting six critical, priority sectors: climate change, disruptive technology, financial inclusion, food and agriculture, healthcare and information and communications technology. Osiris is an investor in a handful of Bangladeshi companies s including Pathao.
BRAC was founded by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed 46 years ago, and today operates in 11 countries across Asia and Africa. BRAC is the global leader in creating opportunities at scale with their holistic approach to creating opportunities for people to realize their full potential. BRAC has been ranked the No.1 NGO in the world for the third year in a row in 2018 and four times in five years as part of the Top 500 NGOs World Rankings published by NGO Advisor, an independent media organization based in Geneva, Switzerland.
