Climate-smart agriculture is another important sector where clean technologies – such as highly efficient irrigation systems and climate-resilient crops – are attracting significant investments as countries seek to maintain or raise their agricultural production. The report estimates that this sector in South Asia alone could offer to clean-tech SMEs a potential market of US$ 100 billion.
Accessing these clean technology opportunities, however, comes with a number of challenges. Clean-tech entrepreneurs find it difficult to access the capital needed to grow and expand their business. Almost half of the Indian SMEs and two-thirds of the Kenyan SMEs surveyed for this report indicated access to finance as a major constraint. Inadequate government policies and unregulated markets can also be a challenge, as well as the lack of required technical capacity, especially in countries where highly skilled workforce is still nascent.