SYSTEMIC
IMPACT
INVESTING
TRAINING

Date: 23 to 27, 2026
Location: London

Duration: 30 hours

Completion Requirements: Min 90% attendance and completion of final assignment.

Modality: In-person only.

Delivery: Focused on real-world application through use cases, examples, individual and group exercises and highly participative.

Course fee: No fee.

This training has been supported by the IMPACT programme of FCDO. The participants are responsible for personal expenses such as travel, food, visa, accommodation.

BACKGROUND

This training has been developed by Agora Global and The Bertha Centre at the University of Cape Town, with the support of FCDO’s IMPACT programme which is helping to improve the impact investing ecosystem.

This training has been developed based on two decades of evidence and learning of development actors, fund managers and catalytic investors applying system lens to addressing social and developmental challenges.

The first iteration of this training was held in March 2025 at the University of Cape Town with 40 participants from SSA and beyond. The cohort consisted of primarily fund managers, but also philanthropies, DFIs, corporate foundations and investment programmes.

Seeing the extremely positive feedback of the participants and the widespread interest, we have decided to launch this training in London to make it accessible to investors based in Europe.

"Really informative, I am so excited to integrate this approach in my work."

WHO IS IT FOR?

This training is for those who are explicitly investing for impact, especially in emerging markets.

This includes organisations investing directly into businesses or financial institutions in emerging markets such as funds, fund managers, DFIs, investment programmes.

This also includes organisations that are investing into financial intermediaries such as Foundations, DFIs, Philanthropies, Family Offices, Endowments, Bilateral donors, among others.

This training is recommended for mid to senior level investment and/or impact professionals.

SELECTION AND TIMELINE

Places are strictly limited. Please submit your expression of interest immediately.

Expression of interest by November 30th, 2025.

Shortlisted candidates will be notified, with a request for their CV by December 14th, 2025.

The final candidates will be notified about their place in the training by January 11th, 2026.

PURPOSE

Impact investing has grown tremendously over recent years but there has been growing concern about whether it has really generated the type of change needed to achieve the SDGs. One of the fundamental issues is that impact is often viewed through a narrow firm-centric lens, excluding broader systemic change.

In reality, portfolio companies do not work in isolation, the impact they achieve is a product of the system in which they are operating. Firm-centric investments and investment strategies do not take account of the wider system, leading to missed opportunities for impact and misrepresentation of ‘true’ impact, whether it be positive or negative. This course aims to shift how investors approach their investment process, by ensuring that systems thinking is applied throughout the process, the depth, scale, and sustainability of impact is improved considerably.

This course will help investors make investments more impactful - from selecting the right investees through impact-centric but market-oriented analysis; better mapping of complex impact pathways; more rigorous impact due diligence; the development of effective and lean impact management processes which increase development impact at a low cost and is aligned with a sound business case, right through to improved, systemic measurement, focused on additional impact.

OUR UNIQUE PEDAGOGY

Gamification

Role-playing

Problem-solving Exercises

Simulations

Case Studies

"The practical exercises were the real 'brain work', they showed blind spots that often lead to poor decision making"

".. really enjoyed the balance between the exercises and theory sessions.."

WHAT IS
SYSTEMIC IMPACT INVESTING?

Systemic impact investing is investing with an explicit recognition of the wider system in which the portfolio company is operating and the objective of the investment is not only to support a single entity (i.e., the portfolio company), but to work as a lever to address the systemic barriers limiting the productivity and efficiency of the sector.

Systemic impact investing means being more rigorous about the impact at the portfolio company level and deliberately trying to generate positive impact for the broader system. Consequently, the investments trigger lasting changes in the behaviour of the portfolio company and other market actors, the solutions are more scalable, sustainalbe, and the outcomes are truly additional.

This approach was borne out of the recognition that the overly simplistic way impact is understood and pursued, is simply not enough to make meaningful progress towards the SDGs, let alone address the growing concerns about poor additionality or attribution or impact washing. Which means, impact investors need to think and act differently - recognise the complex socio-economic and behavioural factors that drive developmental outcomes and better integrate impact considerations in investment processes and tools.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

What it is:

Upon completing this course the participant will be able to:

Articulate why systems thinking is critical and how it applies to impact investments

Define pathways for systemic impact in the context of investments

Apply systemic impact tools and frameworks in different stages of investment decision making

Adapt investment strategies, processes and tools to achieve systemic impact

Deliver deeper, more sustainable and catalytic impact

Communicate effectively about ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how to’ of systemic impact for wider engagement and buy in

What it is not:

This is not a foundational training - we will assume that participants are familiar with the basic concepts and the typical practice and processes in either asset manager or asset owner capacity.

This is not a theoretical systems thinking course - the training is focused specifically on the intersection of systems and investment to demonstrate how to balance the rigor and practicality in day-to-day decision making.
This is not a measurement training - while it is one of the topics that covered, the training covers key decision points across the entire investment life-cycle because generating better impact requires deliberate steps at every step along the way, not only at the point of monitoring.

"The facilitators struck a good balance between theory and real-world application. Overall, a valuable course for anyone working toward long-term systemic impact."

TOPICS COVERED

Introduction to systems thinking in impact investing

Different paradigms of international development, sustainable development and the development paradox

Current state of the Impact investing industry: market size and emerging trends and challenges

Introduction to systems thinking in impact investing: Why is systems thinking relevant? How does systemic approach affect impact performance? How to define and understand systems in the context of investments?

Introduction to ‘Systemic Impact Investing Standard' – Purpose of SIIS, Complementarities with existing standards and frameworks, Adoption and management of SIIS

Application of systemic impact tools in ‘Sourcing’

Why incorporate systemic impact in the sourcing process?

How to define systemic impact for a fund or an investment? - Differentiating value chains and market systems, understanding support markets and root causes, understanding Theory of Change, lean but effective data collection

How to adapt sourcing processes and systems to trigger systemic impact? - Due Diligence checklist and reporting, Investee selection and mapping systems, Evaluation of Impact Strategy, Impact thesis in investment memo

Application of Systemic impact tools in ‘Management’

Why incorporate systemic impact in the management process?

How to develop a vision for Systemic impact? -Understanding nodal incentives, understanding sustainability and systemic change, developing vision for support market changes for systemic impact

How to adapt investee management and reporting for systemic impact? - Adapting Technical Assistance support, strategic partnerships or alliance building, capacity building support, regular reporting

Application of Systemic impact tools in ‘Measurement’

Why adopt systemic impact in measurement?

Measurement fundamentals - Understanding key measurement principles, good practice in impact measurement, key measurement standards and frameworks

How to adapt measurement processes and tools for systemic impact? - Developing systemic impact indicators and KPIs, internal processes for tracking theory of change, measurement plan for data collection, impact aggregation and reporting