Last month, the British Asian Trust launched a $14.4 million development impact bond to upskill 50,000 young people in India, with a particular emphasis on helping women.
It is not the first impact bond the trust has launched in the region. Abha Thorat-Shah, executive director of social finance at the trust, told Devex that the process of developing these instruments has taught the trust a lot about what it means to fund effectively.
Impact bonds are a type of payment-by-results contract. Instead of funding NGOs to deliver a particular service, the funders pay out only if the project achieves a particular set of outcomes.