Deadline: July 31, 2022.

The Financial Times and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, are proud to present the 2022 edition of the Transformational Business Awards, the leading global initiative that highlights and promotes ground-breaking, long-term private sector solutions to major development challenges.

This latest programme marks 17 years of collaboration between the FT and IFC on awards that have had a substantial impact on the way financial and non-financial organisations approach sustainable investment. The judging panel will look at how organisations are harnessing disruptive technologies and business models to achieve impact and scale. Entries are particularly welcome from organisations with initiatives that may provide solutions in fragile and conflict-affected states.

CATEGORIES

Entries will be accepted until 31 July 2022 in the following categories:

• Transformational Climate Change Solutions: Many developing economies lack the capacity and finance to accelerate the energy transition and generally mitigate the effects of climate change. This award recognises initiatives that leverage private sector expertise and finance and new technologies to ensure climate-smart solutions and environmental resilience across key productive sectors, including energy supply, urban and rural infrastructure, mobility networks, green buildings, waste management, manufacturing, logistics, raw material extraction, supply chain management and circularity, agriculture and food and water security.
• Transformational Human Capital Solutions: The impact of the pandemic on communities in developing economies has underlined the urgent need to improve not only health outcomes but also the overall capacity of people to contribute to economic development. This award recognises tech-enabled, scalable solutions that boost human capital by improving on the one hand the access, affordability and quality of healthcare, and on the other, the acquisition of education and skills that help young people and current workforces for the demands of increasingly digital economies. Initiatives that address the digital divide will also be considered in this category.
• Transformational Finance Solutions – Impact Investing: This award recognises impact investing funds that demonstrate innovation, scalability and measured impact in their operations. It is open to funds that can demonstrate concrete impact results and financial sustainability achieved through its investments. Special attention will be given to innovation in the fund manager’s approach to identifying, nurturing and scaling-up impact opportunities; the expected and realised impact results and financial returns; and the quality of impact management, measurement and reporting, taking as reference recognised industry standards.
• Transformational Finance Solutions – Gender-lens Finance: Investing for financial return through the lens of female empowerment is a proven and growing asset class that can help counter continued discrimination against women and girls and ensure they can contribute to, and be included in, broader economic development. Scalable, gender-focused solutions in areas such as MSME finance, fintech and digital financial services, financial education, insurance and risk mitigation, housing, asset and property ownership, startup capital, and other key areas, can make a big difference. This award recognises innovative, high-quality financial solutions for women and women-led businesses in developing economies, with special attention given to sectors and segments in which such businesses are traditionally underserved.
• Transformational Solutions – New Frontiers: This special category is designed to highlight exciting new deep tech ideas that may not meet the eligibility criteria for the core categories but have the potential, with additional funding, to have a transformational impact on the challenges they are targeting. Entries should be aligned with the themes of the four core categories.
• Overall Award: Excellence in Transformational Business: This prize will be awarded to the initiative that in the opinion of the judging panel stands apart among the winners of all categories for its level of innovation, impact, replicability, financial viability and sustainability in the context of a developing economy.

ELIGIBILITY

• The Awards are open to all private sector organisations, as well as NGOs that can meet the judging criteria. 
• Entries are particularly welcome from organisations with initiatives that may provide solutions in fragile and conflict-affected states.

OFFICIAL LINK