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Kiva and The MasterCard Foundation Announce Five-Year Project to Expand Financial Access Among African Smallholder Farmers and Rural Populations
Kiva and The MasterCard Foundation today entered into a five-year, $7.9 million partnership to test and scale financial services and loan products tailored to the unique needs of smallholder farmers and rural populations in Sub-Saharan Africa. Support from The MasterCard Foundation underscores its commitment to enable financial inclusion strategies with high-impact potential.
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- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Mobile Money Meets Microcredit: Three Key Decisions in Taking a Concept from Design to Pilot
SAJIDA Foundation in Bangladesh is using evidence from data analytics, business case analysis and client research to improve cross-selling as part of the OPTIX project. Three key evidence-based programmatic decisions were necessary to take a new mobile financial service-based microfinance initiative from the design table to being piloted in the field.
- Categories
- Finance
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Asian Development Bank partners with Citi to provide US$100 million for microfinance in Asia
Asian Development Bank (ADB) has entered into an agreement with Citi to expand local currency lending to the microfinance sector under the Microfinance Risk Participation and Guarantee Program.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Survey: Multiple microloans making borrowers highly indebted in Indonesia
Fifty-nine percent of micro borrowers may be indebted as they face difficulties managing their finances to repay their mounting loans, according to a recent survey conducted in four cities in West Java.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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India vs. Pakistan: The Pros and Cons of Two Radically Different Digital ID Systems
India’s digital identification system, Aadhaar, has registered nearly 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion citizens. Just across the border, Pakistan's NADRA system has issued 120 million identities among the country's 180 million citizens. Both systems give citizens an ID and can give them access to both government and commercial services, yet they are radically different. Which approach provides the best model for other countries?
- Categories
- Technology
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Making Microfinance More Effective
For the 2.5 billion people who live on less than $2 per day, shocks such as illness, crop failures, livestock deaths, farming-equipment breakdowns and even wedding or funeral expenses can be enough to tip them, their families, or even an entire community below the poverty line. A major challenge for international development efforts is determining which financial tools provide durable buffers against such setbacks.
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- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup: Preventing Zika, Improving Microfinance and Percolating Progress
It’s not too early to start thinking of creative differential pricing strategies that might help poor people afford a Zika vaccine; it's not too late for microfinance to regain some of the allure it's lost in recent years; and the time is just right for East Africa to up its coffee production game. Read all about these items, and more, in our Weekly Roundup.
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- Uncategorized
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One Out of Four Financially Excluded Women Across the World Is an Indian: Study
The number of financially excluded women in India fell by 20% between 2014 and 2015, helped by the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), according to Omidyar Network.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia