Startup enterprises and social innovators who solve these social and environmental issues are in no small number. However, access to capital is usually a major hurdle which often limits them from scaling. The country is ready for more impact investments as the market continues to grow despite the macroeconomic challenges which led to a recession in 2016 and 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fall in global oil prices. Impact capital grew from $1.9 billion being deployed by 28 investors in 2015 to $4.7 billion deployed by close to 70 investors as of September, 2019.

A major challenge for Impact Investors is the difficulty in sourcing new deals and opportunities. Finding investor-ready businesses that meet both financial and impact criteria is reportedly difficult, especially women-led and owned enterprises whose businesses are now being negatively impacted by the COVID-19. There are limited formal channels or networks that showcase impact enterprises for pipeline development and analysis, so investors rely heavily on word of mouth and their informal networks. There is therefore a strong need to create a platform to showcase Nigerian investment opportunities and attract both local and foreign capital for social investment in Nigeria. This is the main objective of the 2021 Annual Convening on Impact Investing.

Specifically, the convening will:

• Showcase the potential of Nigeria, competitive and comparative critical sectors and impact investment opportunities in Nigeria
• Present key priority areas for rapid social development with available government incentives.
• Trigger the mainstreaming of impact investing in Nigeria.
• Proffer solutions and working models to the challenge of limited high-quality deal flows in Nigeria’s impact investment ecosystem.
• Promote impact intentionality, impact measurement and reporting by Nigerian Enterprises.