Oikocredit has signed a two-year partnership with Aqua for All to mobilise investments in water and sanitation – an area that Oikocredit is exploring as part of its 2022-2024 strategy.

We recently sat down with Aqua for All’s Managing Director, Josien Sluijs, to talk about the partnership with the foundation and to understand more about the sector.

Social impact investor and worldwide cooperative Oikocredit is providing a three-year term loan of US$ 1,000,000 to Standard Life Organisation, a Nigerian NGO and microfinance institution that empowers disadvantaged households and communities through financial services and capacity building. 

With this investment, Oikocredit reinforces its commitment to support financial inclusion through partnerships with socially oriented financial institutions.

Until 2020, investors in Canada were able to invest indirectly in OIKOCREDIT, Ecumenical Development Cooperative Society U.A. (Oikocredit) through Stichting Oikocredit International Share Foundation (OISF).

OISF is a member of Oikocredit. It holds shares in Oikocredit and issued depository receipts for those shares to investors in Canada. OISF ceased its offering in Canada in late 2020 but continues to serve existing investors. The introduction of the new capital-raising model will lead to changes for those existing investors. Oikocredit plans to introduce this new model once the required responses from regulators have been received. 

Oikocredit Canada Support Association (OCSA) is led by a volunteer board of directors.

Though we know them professionally today, we dig deep and ask them some informal questions to get to know them better and learn more about their passions and hopes for the future.

Know your Director will be an ongoing blog series. 

This month we get to know OCSA director Ellen Pekilis.

Co-operators, the Canadian financial services co-operative with $61.5bn in assets under administration continues to lead the industry in using the power of its invested assets to help bring about a more sustainable society. Taking its mission a step further, the company has launched Co-operators Sustainable Investment Portfolios, a new investment product for retail clients currently distributed exclusively through Co-operators Financial Investment Services Inc. (CFIS). The latest addition to Co-operators range of wealth products aims to enable Canadian investors to achieve their financial goals while actively supporting society's biggest environmental and social issues.

There is no peace in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) without gender justice and environmental justice. This was one of the key messages of the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF) recent webinar on the climate crisis in the MENA region. Speakers illuminated different impacts of the climate crisis on women under militarised regimes and in conflict areas, sketched out grassroots solutions, and shared their key demands for COP27, the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference from 6-18 November and beyond. and beyond.

MENA is among the most vulnerable places in the world to climate change. Women at the grassroots in the region - being those most affected - are uniquely positioned to contribute to sustainable natural resource management, climate-resilient communities, and enhanced peace and stability. For policymakers and practitioners, promoting women’s contributions can accelerate gains across peace, conservation, and sustainability. 

Oikocredit published its Impact Report 2022. In this report you can learn about Oikocredit's social impact - how we measure it, and what this looks like in our focus sectors and regions, our capacity building and more