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Environmental Pollution Programme
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The Environmental Pollution Programme’s aim is to work with ODA-eligible countries and regions to reduce the adverse impacts of pollution. Work will improve health and reduce environmental harm and poverty that results from chemical, air, waste and water pollution, as part of the Triple Planetary Crisis. 2021-22: Scoping year to share expertise, best practice and invest in research to strengthen the capacity of low- and middle-income countries to meet their obligations under UN Multilateral Environment Agreements and frameworks. 2022-2025: Phase one delivering two multi-year projects in Vietnam and South Africa through delivery partners Global Alliance on Health and Pollution, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and in country organisations. The programme reduced pollution and its impacts on the environment and health by promoting sustainable, economically viable practices, strengthening regulations, and enhancing awareness through multi-sector engagement, robust evidence projects, capacity building and monitoring to support policymaking. 2025-26: This year’s programme will build and expand on the successful approaches on reducing air pollution and increasing uptake of integrated pest management in Vietnam, adding new work on waste and plastic pollution. Work in Uganda will focus on developing a Health and Pollution Action Plan, creating a framework for future action that is aligned with priorities of national stakeholders. The programme will also establish Regional Pollution Forums, working in a multilateral way to amplify impact by spreading knowledge of successful interventions.
Screen4SpLDs - Development of an Automated Pre-Screening Tool for Specific Learning Disabilities in Children.
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Specific Learning Disabilities (SpLDs) is a common term in today's society, which manifests in different ways and can cause various difficulties in daily life. For one person it might be the lack of attention, for another, it might be struggling to read fluently or conduct basic mathematical calculations; these are different groups of Learning Disabilities. Early detection and treatment of SpLDs are crucial, as it enables the start of interventions that support the best outcomes for children living with SLDs. Not addressing SLDs at a young age has a major influence on development into adulthood and results in a high economic cost, exceeding the lifetime costs of asthma, intellectual disability, and diabetes have a huge shortage of special educators to conduct SLDs screening and subsequently providing treatment post diagnosis. There are nearly 90% of the world's children reside in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). The challenge of early detection and early intervention of SpLDs is exacerbated by limited expertise, including limited screening, diagnostic and treatment resources in LMICs. For instance, in the Global South, the skilled human resource and tools to assess SpLDs are very limited. Thus, these children are undiagnosed and negatively reinforced by the community by stigmatizing and labelling them. These factors all lead to low self-esteem and behavior problems that further interfere with their ability to learn. In vulnerable communities, which are often already poverty stricken, this operates as a vicious cycle, simply because optimal education is the main method of breaking this vicious cycle. We aim to target these developmental issues by developing and piloting low-cost mobile app-based solution for the screening of SpLDs that will lead to early intervention. Specific learning disorder may affect handwriting in a way that can be visually distinguished. The purpose of the proposed research is to evaluate the ability of deep learning to distinguish between those who have SpLDs and those who do not, from their handwriting. The proposed solution requires no more than taking a photo of the handwritten image on a mobile phone and passing it to the prediction model and getting the prediction results. Based on the proposed solution, the SpLDs screening can be conducted at home, in a school study area without any additional special setting. The important factors of this app are simplicity, ease of use, less training requirement, the accuracy of the results, and reliability. This app can serve from individual to national level for screening SpLDs in children. This will reduce the burden of the shortage of special educators, and this will be a huge relief for LMICs. This will, in general, reduce the inequalities faced by vulnerable and marginalized children, by providing an opportunity to receive optimal health and educational services. This will lead to the improvement of quality education received by ALL which in turn will contribute to wider societal improvements. In addition to the direct impact on the child, the spillover effects on the family and community development are significant. Further, creating an opportunity to screen a larger population will increase societal awareness of SpLDs and reduce the stigma
Sustaining Power: Women's struggles against contemporary backlash in South Asia
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Women in South Asia have struggled for many decades to improve their lives within their families, in their communities, for securing their livelihoods, and in getting their voices heard as citizens by the state, with women's movements being critical in advancing their rights. However, contemporary social, economic and political changes have created new and multiple forms of backlash and contestations. How do women defend their rights, and secure their gains against these regressive forces and backlash? This question leads our research on the strategies and mechanisms that women use to retain power and sustain gains in women's rights. This research is particularly interested in how different groups of women understanding power and struggle, and how these change over time. We aim to assess what works to defend women's rights, and explain why some struggles are more successful than others in sustaining gains. We think that success of women's struggles depends on a) the types of strategies they use to counter different types of backlash; b) the ways in which struggles include voices and perspectives of different groups of women; and c) the ways in which struggles connect to other movements and groups across local, regional and national levels. The central research question therefore is: When, how, and why do women's power struggles succeed in retaining power and sustaining their gains against backlash? South Asia provides a valuable opportunity to investigate women's struggles. The region has witnessed rapid and large changes over the last decade, including urbanization, rising employment precarity, new electoral laws and regime changes, shifts in social norms, and the spread of digital technology. We aim to examine how these changes create new and multiple forms of backlash; and how women's struggles for power are variously challenged, opened up or are closed down by these changes. We are interested in unraveling the similarities and differences in processes and strategies used by different women's movements to retain power in the face of backlash; and in women's own experiences and interpretations of their struggles as these evolve and adapt over time. We will select 16 cases of women's struggles in four countries that represent the largest populations of South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. Within each country, we will select on-going and contentious cases of struggle in one of four arenas within which gains in women's rights are being sought: family, community, market and the state. This research will use a variety of methods including: a) identifying and analyzing the types of backlash created by processes of contemporary change; b) mapping critical players and what shapes their motivations for action; c) tracing the struggles, nature and trajectory of each movement to counter backlash - through oral history methods, reflective and participatory techniques, qualitative interviews and archival research; d) undertaking comparative analysis to compare how different movements may have triggered, galvanized or been strengthened by power struggles across different arenas; and e) identifying and systematizing which combinations of mechanisms and strategies work to defend women's rights in South Asia and beyond. This is a collaborative research project that draws together a multi-disciplinary research team with deep in-country and conceptual expertise on women's rights and contemporary power struggles in South Asia. This project includes strong capacity building initiatives and opportunities for learning through reflective processes with women's movements and research partners. This research is ambitious in its scope and we hope that our findings that will be grounded in real life experiences of women, will be relevant and useful for feminist scholars, activists and policy actors to set their future course of action to defend women's rights across the world.
India Value Fund III
British International Investment plc
This is a 2007 vintage fund with a focus on SMEs in India.
Baring India Private Equity Fund III Ltd
British International Investment plc
This is a generalist private equity growth fund in India.
Kotak India Private Equity Fund Limited
British International Investment plc
Mid cap fund investing in India
Actis India Fund 2 LP
British International Investment plc
This focuses on private equity growth investing in parallel with Actis South Asia Fund II but only in India
APF-I (Mauritius) Limited
British International Investment plc
This is a generalist SME private equity fund investing in India.
IDFC Private Equity (Mauritius) Fund III
British International Investment plc
This is a generalist mid-market private equity fund investing in India.
Sarva Capital LLC (Formerly Lok II)
British International Investment plc
This is a 2010 vintage fund providing long-term equity capital with a focus on financial inclusion and broader inclusion in India.
Sarva Capital LLC (Formerly Lok II)
British International Investment plc
This is a 2010 vintage fund providing long-term equity capital with a focus on financial inclusion and broader inclusion in India.
Ankur Capital III
British International Investment plc
Ankur is an early-stage venture fund investing in tech-enabled businesses and deep science-based innovations in India.
IB VOGT (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.
British International Investment plc
ib vogt (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (“Company”) is a Singapore-based subsidiary of German-based ib vogt GmbH, a global developer of wind and solar assets. The Company develops solar, wind and BESS projects in various Asia-Pacific markets.
Liberty Wind Power 1 (PVT) Limited
British International Investment plc
CDC's investment is funding the creation of 150 MW of wind farms located in the Jhimpir area of the Sindh province of Pakistan. The project involves three separate schemes of 50 MW each, two developed by Liberty Mills and one by Indus Group.
Liberty Wind Power 2 (PVT) Limited
British International Investment plc
CDC's investment is funding the creation of 150 MW of wind farms located in the Jhimpir area of the Sindh province of Pakistan. The project involves three separate schemes of 50 MW each, two developed by Liberty Mills and one by Indus Group.
Loadshare Networks Private Limited
British International Investment plc
Loadshare is an Indian logistics company that uses technology to bring together small and medium logistics companies to create a pan-Indian network reaching local suppliers and rural customers. By bringing together these smaller companies, Loadshare enables them to have better market access, which in turn boosts their growth and creates jobs.
Metro Wind Power Limited
British International Investment plc
Our investment will provide much-needed equity finance to support the development of a clean energy platform and help to scale renewable power capacity in Pakistan. The partnership will help accelerate investment into the renewable power sector in Pakistan and underlines our focus on the renewable sector in the country.
Nepal Water and Energy Development Company
British International Investment plc
Alongside a consortium of lenders, CDC finalised a $453 million debt financing package to support the construction of a landmark hydro-electric plant in central Nepal, Upper Trishuli-1. This was led by the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group.
Omnivore Partners India Fund 2
British International Investment plc
Omnivore Partners India Fund II supports breakthrough technologies in Indian agriculture.
Plenty Private Equity Fund I (Multiples II)
British International Investment plc
Commitment to a fund supporting a good performing fund during tough fundraising conditions in India.