Social Enterprise Solutions Servicing Rural Communities and Sustainable Tourism Development in Indonesia

Local start-up Sumba Sustainable Solutions are partnering with rural women to reduce their domestic workload using solar-powered corn and rice mills in remote villages in Sumba, Indonesia. The mills are coupled with household Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) solar light and phone charger systems in a sustainable social business model currently servicing 2500 customers.

Global Insights: ADB’s Programmatic Approach to Power Sector Reforms in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, ADB’s programmatic approach and policy-based loan for the Power Sector Reforms and Financial Sustainability aims to consolidate the electricity industry reforms implemented under the Electricity Act 2009 by unbundling Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) into wholly-owned corporate entities for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, implementation of fully cost reflective tariffs, facilitate an enabling environment for market liberalization, and strengthen renewable energy investment activities in the country.

Asia Clean Energy Forum 2025: Empowering the Future - Clean Energy Innovations, Regional Cooperation and Integration, and Financing Solutions

The Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF), an annual flagship event of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), will be held from 2 to 6 June 2025 at the ADB Headquarters in Manila, Philippines, under the theme “Empowering the Future: Clean Energy Innovations, Regional Cooperation and Integration, and Financing Solutions.”

Kalpana Sankar

Dr. Kalpana Sankar, a pioneering impactpreneur and nuclear physicist turned social entrepreneur, has reshaped social impact over the past three decades. As the Managing Director of Belstar Microfinance Ltd. and the co-founder and Chairperson of Hand in Hand India, she has empowered 10 million rural women with sustainable employment opportunities.

Mariko Ouchi

Ms. Mariko Ouchi has been serving as Senior Social Protection Specialist for South Asia, based in the ILO Decent Work Technical Support Team (DWT) in New Delhi since September 2020. She provides technical advisory services to seven countries in the sub-region: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Ajay Mahal

Dr Ajay Mahal is an economist with over 25 years of experience in health systems and policy research and evaluation. His recent research has focused on the evaluation of health system interventions. Ajay's research interests span a range of economically relevant questions about household and national-level impacts of (ill) health, human resources for health, fiscal federalism and health, and social protection. He has also been engaged in collaborative research on the intersection of clinical epidemiology and household economics.