Indonesia’s transition to electric mobility is central to its net-zero targets by 2060, as the country’s transport sector accounts for nearly 23% of national emissions. The government has set ambitious targets of 2 million electric four-wheelers and 12 million two-wheelers by 2030. Yet, adoption remains limited.  

Only 359,000 EVs as of 2025 represent about 2.6% of the target. A key bottleneck is the severe gap in charging infrastructure. Fewer than 5,000 public charging stations are available against a target of 63,000, with most concentrated in urban regions, such as Java and Bali. High upfront costs, limited access to financing, and centralized institutional structures further constrain private participation and last-mile deployment.  

At the same time, MSMEs, particularly women-led enterprises, remain an untapped channel to enable decentralized, community-based infrastructure expansion. They account for more than 60% of micro and small businesses. 

MSC supports this push toward electric mobility and has developed a policy-oriented white paper on Indonesia’s EV ecosystem. The paper synthesizes the key bottlenecks that constrain EV charging scale-up, including operational challenges, institutional constraints, and financing limitations. Multiple stakeholders across the government, state-owned enterprises, EV developers, think tanks, and MSMEs have validated the white paper. 

The paper identifies the most feasible and scalable models for infrastructure expansion, presents priority recommendations for relevant stakeholders, and introduces an implementation plan. This plan would be operationalized within Indonesia’s existing policy and institutional environment to enable the participation of women-led MSMEs. 

MSC’s work will catalyze the operationalization of inclusive EV charging models, new EV supply chains, such as BaaS among others.   

Over time, this engagement will help enable more commercially viable and geographically distributed infrastructure that catalyzes EV penetration in rural Indonesia. It will simultaneously accelerate EV adoption beyond urban centers. The engagement will also strengthen women’s economic participation in the green economy and contribute to Indonesia’s broader clean mobility and climate transition goals. 

The Gates Foundation supports this engagement. 

The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) spans 3,500 kilometers across eight countries and supports critical freshwater, biodiversity, and ecosystem services for up to 2 billion people, which includes communities in Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal. It serves as the headwaters of major transboundary river basins. This makes it central to regional ecological stability and sustainable development.  

However, the region is highly vulnerable to climate change, where rising temperatures drive glacial retreat and disrupt hydrological cycles. Communities in mountain areas depend on spring water as their primary source of drinking water and small-scale irrigation, yet its availability has fallen sharply across the region. 

Without structured safeguard assessments, well-intentioned interventions may cause unintended ecological disruption, exclude marginalized communities, or fall short of international compliance standards. Gaps in site-specific evidence constrain the ability of implementing organizations to manage risks, realize co-benefits, and align with national and donor requirements. 

The International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) engaged MSC to conduct environmental safeguards (ES) and gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) assessments. These assessments were done across Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. This work was carried out under the HI-CAS project, supported by Global Affairs Canada. It focused on three key climate adaptation interventions: Springshed management, solar-powered irrigation, and agrobiodiversity practices. 

MSC conducted extensive review and mapping of  environmental risks, regulatory requirements, and co-benefits across different intervention types. This was followed by in country field work to engage with community members, indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), farmers, water and forest user groups, and government representatives. MSC used  Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework and developed site-specific environmental management plans (EMPs). Through  subsequent consultations and cocreation processes MSC refined the ES and GESI assessment of outputs and strategies. 

MSC delivered site-specific EMPs with mitigation measures, monitoring indicators, and compliance requirements. It also developed an evidence base to support environmentally sustainable and inclusive adaptation scaling across mountain ecosystems. 

The ICIMOD commissioned the project as part of the HI-CAS initiative, with support from Global Affairs Canada. 

India’s food systems and circularity sectors form the backbone of livelihoods for millions. Yet, it remains deeply exposed to growing climate pressures. 86% of India’s 126 million farm households operate on less than 2 hectares, while average farm incomes are just INR 8,337 (~USD 88) per month against cultivation costs of INR 3,740 (~USD 40). The structural precarity is stark. Across smallholder agriculture, dairy, fisheries, forestry, and waste management, production systems face increasing stress from erratic weather, resource degradation, and structural inefficiencies. Without adaptive action, climate change could reduce India’s agricultural productivity by up to 25% by 2050.  

These challenges are most acute for the bottom 30% of producers who are thinly capitalized, lack resilient infrastructure, and have limited risk-mitigation capabilities. What appears to be isolated production losses is a systemic failure in which climate risks cascade across value chains and erode incomes and resilience at scale. Existing interventions are fragmented and reactive, and have failed to address the deeply embedded bottlenecks that drive vulnerability. 

A systems-level approach is needed to address this problem and identify high-impact, scalable interventions across interconnected sectors. In this context, The/Nudge Institute, through its ^delta Prize, engaged MSC as the technical partner to identify breakthrough opportunities for climate-resilient livelihoods across five sectors: Agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry, and waste management. 

MSC covered eight sub-sectors under agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry, and waste management and mapped climate stress points, structural bottlenecks, and existing interventions. This was followed by 40 expert consultations with industry practitioners, researchers, and ecosystem actors and focused listening sessions to present and stress-test problem statements, gather expert feedback, and define measurable thresholds to anchor intervention design and investment decisions. 

The project produced a roadmap of critical problem areas that affect climate-resilient livelihoods across food systems and circularity sectors. It also developed nine defined, measurable problem statements where targeted interventions could accelerate innovation and scale. These spanned regenerative farming, soil diagnostics, weed management, animal health monitoring, poultry market access, pond risk management, low-value waste processing, decentralized wastewater reuse, and productive use of crop residue. Each problem statement was anchored in clear performance thresholds to guide prize design and investment decisions. 

The Nudge Institute commissioned the project as part of the Earth Futures Series, with support from the ^delta prize. 

FACE engaged MSC (MicroSave Consulting) to design, develop, and deploy a disclosure intelligence tool to strengthen transparency and compliance monitoring across India’s digital lending ecosystem. The solution enables systematic tracking of default loss guarantee (DLG) disclosures published by loan service providers (LSPs) and regulated entities (REs), in line with the Reserve Bank of India Digital Lending Directions.

MSC developed this as a centralized, automated dashboard system that integrates website crawling, scraping, and structured data extraction. The tool aggregates publicly available DLG disclosures across diverse formats into a secure, searchable, and time-series-enabled interface. This allows FACE to generate sector-level insights, monitor compliance trends, and significantly reduce the manual effort required to track disclosures.

The system was developed and validated through an iterative, end-to-end process covering data ingestion, extraction, storage, and visualization. MSC worked closely with FACE to define requirements and map existing industry disclosure practices. Based on testing and quality assurance cycles, the solution was refined to address gaps in scraping logic, improve data accuracy, and enhance overall dashboard performance. MSC also provided ongoing maintenance and hyper-care support to ensure the system remains robust and adaptable as disclosure practices evolve.

FACE engaged MSC (MicroSave Consulting) to design and pilot a technology-enabled consumer protection solution to address the growing risks posed by unlicensed and fraudulent digital lending apps (DLAs) in India. MSC developed a DLA verification and information portal that enables consumers to validate the legitimacy of lending applications and access key information before use.

The tool is built on publicly available regulatory data, primarily the Reserve Bank of India list of DLAs deployed by regulated entities. It allows users to search by app name or URL and uses intelligent matching to identify the closest verified entries. The system returns authenticated links to the application across platforms such as app stores and websites, enabling users to distinguish legitimate apps from potentially fraudulent ones.

In addition to validation, the tool provides structured, user-friendly information on each DLA, including associated loan service providers (LSPs), regulated entities (REs), and grievance redressal details. This enhances transparency and equips users with the necessary information to make informed decisions and seek recourse where required.

MSC designed the portal with a simple, consumer-facing interface accessible via web, ensuring ease of use for first-time and low-literacy users. The solution also includes a cleaned and standardized dataset of DLAs, which can be searched, viewed, and downloaded. The dataset is periodically updated to reflect changes in the regulatory registry and ensure continued accuracy.

The system was developed through an iterative, user-centric process that included data cleaning, backend matching logic, and interface design. MSC worked closely with FACE to define requirements, test functionality, and refine the solution based on usability and performance considerations. Post-deployment, MSC supported enhancements to improve matching accuracy, strengthen data reliability, and ensure smooth functioning.

As a subsequent enhancement, the solution includes the capability to generate an aggregated dashboard based on the DLA dataset. This provides a consolidated view of ecosystem-level indicators such as the number of DLAs, distribution across LSPs and regulated entities, and platform availability. By transforming fragmented regulatory data into structured insights, the dashboard supports ecosystem monitoring and informed decision-making.

The tool has been integrated into FACE’s website to enable access for consumers and stakeholders, contributing to reduced exposure to fraudulent applications and strengthening trust in the digital lending ecosystem.