Unilever partnership pledges £40 million to support social enterprises

This next phase will quadruple the size of the programme, from £10 million to £40 million, to support market-based solutions that meet low-income household needs in developing countries. Through financial and business support for social enterprises and behaviour-change interventions, TRANSFORM’s aim is to enable 100 million people in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia to gain access to products and services that have been shown to improve health, livelihoods, the environment or wellbeing by 2025.

DFID and Unilever founded TRANSFORM in 2015 with an ambition to bring private sector creativity and commercial approaches to solve persistent global development challenges. To date, it has supported 19 projects across nine countries, which have already benefited over a quarter of a million people. The portfolio includes a mobile platform for shopkeepers in Kenya that encourages them to become change agents in their communities, and a portable handwashing station for low-income households in Bangladesh.

The next phase of TRANSFORM will build on this early success and serve as a basis for collaboration with additional partners to further catalyse impact at scale.

TRANSFORM will continue to drive progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as the world prepares for a more inclusive, low-carbon and equitable economy by 2030. The SDGs are ambitious, and estimates show that investments of between $3–4 trillion a year are required to meet them. Current levels of funding indicate an annual gap of $2.5 trillion, and new multi-stakeholder partnerships are ideally placed to unlock the resources needed to enable inclusive markets for the benefit of everyone.