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Yunus Was Wrong — Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right: Here’s How the Financial Inclusion Sector Can Shift its Focus
After playing a key role in the early development of the microfinance sector, Jeffrey Ashe went to Bosnia in the mid-1990s to consult on a new microfinance project. In those days, microcredit was widely viewed as a silver bullet that could end poverty, but while working in Bosnia, he learned that informal savings groups were already providing an effective alternative to formal loans in the local community. Ashe has spent the subsequent decades studying and supporting savings groups in countries around the world. He shares research that illuminates these groups' vast global impact, and argues that they could achieve far more if the financial inclusion sector supported them.
- Categories
- Finance
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Microfinance Clients In Groups Report Better Experience Than Individual Borrowers
These insights are from a preliminary look at the latest Microfinance Index (MFI), a survey of microfinance clients conducted by impact measurement company 60 Decibels.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Technology
- Region
- Global
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Press Release: GIZ and Seedstars Launch Joint Initiative to Boost Financial Inclusion and Innovation in Palestine
Although 60% of adults possess bank accounts in Palestine, a mere 10% utilize credit products, owing to limited financial literacy and inadequate financial offerings.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Press Release: Global Microfinance Index Announces Early Insights, Top Impact Award Winners and 3 New Tools to Access the Data
Now in its second year, 60 Decibels releases 5 key findings from the world's largest financial inclusion index grounded in human voice, ahead of its public report launch later this year.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Global
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How Innovation Created an Off-Grid Solar Market in Rural Bangladesh — And What Other Countries Can Learn from this Model
In the early 2000s, a small-scale World Bank pilot project in Bangladesh unexpectedly grew into the largest off-grid solar program in the world. According to Nancy Wimmer at microSOLAR, the program's success provided the rest of the world with a model for how low- and middle-income countries can develop a nationwide, rural market for decentralized solar systems driven by home-grown companies. She explores how other countries can adapt Bangladesh’s market-creating innovations to their own local environments.
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- Energy, Technology
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African Development Bank, Government of Chad Sign $650,000 Grant Agreement to Extend Digital Financial and Non-financial Services to Women and Youth
The funding will advance the Microfinance Development Support Project for Women and Youth Entrepreneurship.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: Global Financial Inclusion Initiative Expands to Collect Over 1 Million Unique Data Points in 2023
Now in its second year, the 2023 Microfinance Index will survey 30,000+ microfinance clients in 30 countries focusing specifically on clients in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Uganda, and Ecuador.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
- Region
- Global
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Press Release: Symbiotics Investments Provides a US $10 Million Gender-Focused Bond to Khan Bank in Mongolia
This is the first bond in Mongolia with the explicit purpose of supporting the SDGs through a gender lens.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific