India, Indonesia, and Vietnam alone are home to over 950 million impoverished individuals—a number that amounts to more than half of their cumulative population.

Such a reality stands in stark contrast to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an agenda of lofty objectives for our global future, among them, “decent work and economic growth” for all, “reduced inequalities,” and—succinctly stated—”no poverty.” For too many Southeast Asians and Indians, however, these goals have been a distant dream.

But by making investments in innovative ideas that target the root causes of poverty, we can work collectively help raise living standards for people everywhere, and particularly in developing countries.

That’s why The Rockefeller Foundation has invested $2 million in equity into the Livelihood Impact Fund, one of the first venture capital funds seeking to improve the livelihoods of Southeast Asia’s working poor.

This revolutionary fund targets high-growth, early-stage companies that have the ability to achieve scale and financial stability, but nonetheless find it hard to recruit mainstream capital. The Livelihood Impact Fund operates on the idea that such investments have the potential to generate both a social and competitive financial return.

Today, seventy-five percent of livelihoods in the developing world depend on traditional value chains, such as agriculture and informal retail. These local supply and distribution chains, however, are failing to link markets efficiently in our rapidly globalizing world. And these inefficiencies disproportionately affect the working poor.

Read the entire article on the Rockefeller Foundation’s website.