Parts of this site were translated using AI. Accuracy may vary.
Parts of this site were translated using AI. Accuracy may vary.
Thursday, 26 June 2025
Partner: Build Change
Collaborators: KOMIDA, Global Innovation Fund
Location & Region: Indonesia, Southeast Asia & Oceania
SAA Impact System: Infrastructure & Finance
Impact: 2,000 women living on less than $5 a day
Across Indonesia, homes built without insulation or ventilation struggle to keep out the heat. Temperatures regularly exceed safe thresholds, particularly in low-income neighbourhoods where materials are often poor quality and resources are stretched. For many households, especially those led by women living on low incomes, finding a way to stay cool is essential for protecting health, sustaining livelihoods and coping with a climate that is becoming more volatile.
Indonesia is among the countries most exposed to extreme heat, and the number of people at risk is growing. Yet affordable ways to adapt remain scarce. Poor households face difficult trade-offs when it comes to improving their homes, with little access to suitable products, trusted advice or financial support. Climate resilience is often treated as a luxury, out of reach for those managing daily pressures on limited income.
In response, Build Change, a social innovator focused on resilient housing and partner to the Race to Resilience, is working in partnership with KOMIDA, one of Indonesia’s largest microfinance institutions, to turn this around. With support from a $460,000 investment by the Global Innovation Fund (GIF), the project is designed to enable women living on less than $5 per day to make targeted improvements that reduce heat inside the home, without taking on unmanageable debt or relying on costly technologies.
To do this, Build Change is developing and refining a set of low-cost measures that can bring down indoor temperatures, tailored to the realities of informal or substandard housing. The solutions are intended to be simple, affordable and adaptable, small changes that can have a meaningful impact. At the same time, KOMIDA is introducing a new lending product, which has the support of Build Change for its development: Incremental Climate Adaptation Loans, or ICALs, which provide women with financing specifically for climate-related home upgrades. These are not generic loans repurposed for adaptation, but purpose-built to meet the needs of low-income borrowers facing climate risk.
To support delivery, KOMIDA’s loan officers will use Build Change’s digital platform, BCtap, which allows them to work directly with clients to assess conditions, plan upgrades and implement them in a stepwise, supported way. This digital infrastructure helps to embed technical guidance into the financing process, ensuring that climate adaptation becomes part of everyday lending practice.
The project aims to reach 2,000 women living on less than $5 a day. Beyond the direct benefits for those households, it will also contribute to the wider understanding of how microfinance can play a role in resilience-building. The learning generated will help assess the viability of targeted climate adaptation loans, inform future finance models, and demonstrate how the financial sector can better serve communities facing climate pressures.
