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Trash Talk: Why the Circular Economy Could be Sub-Saharan Africa’s Latest Leapfrog Industry
From mobile banking to off-grid energy, sub-Saharan Africa has shown a tendency to leapfrog the rest of the world in establishing widespread access to digital infrastructure and new technologies. Tine Fisker Henriksen at BESTSELLER Foundation explores how the continent is making similar strides in the circular economy. She shares how enterprises across the region are taking innovative approaches to waste management, developing groundbreaking approaches to waste collection and recycling – while also supporting the often-informal workers who power the industry.
- Categories
- Technology, WASH
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Dear Big Tech Leaders: Instead of Harvesting Our Data and Launching Yourselves Into Space, How About Making Life Better on Earth?
As Big Tech's data practices come under greater scrutiny and its leaders indulge in an ego-driven space race, Steve Hollingworth of Grameen Foundation says it’s time to have a hard conversation with the industry. It can start with the question of why its core companies are focusing their talents and technologies on accumulating ever-greater amounts of money, while the world struggles with long-standing and quickly escalating challenges that could be greatly improved by the data and other resources the tech industry commands.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Tags
- corporations, data, NGOs
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Monitoring and Evaluation in E-Learning: Five M&E Practices to Measure and Boost the Impact of Online Education Programs
Educational institutions, businesses, nonprofits and other organizations have turned to e-learning during the COVID-19 crisis, and these approaches are likely to remain prevalent in a post-pandemic world. According to Yaquta Kanchwala Fatehi of the William Davidson Institute and Salma Elbeblawi of Soliya, virtual exchange is an area of particular interest and innovation within the broader online education space. They share five key monitoring and evaluation insights that can strengthen these programs in real time – and that can be applied to a variety of e-learning programs.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment, Technology
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Research that Embraces the Messiness of Real Life: How an Innovative, Tech-Enabled Survey Method is Revealing the True Feelings of the Bottom Billion
Of any population in the world, the poor are the least likely to feel free to speak their minds, which makes it difficult to use surveys to understand and meet their unique needs. Daryl Collins, and Carolina de Miranda and Laura Morínigo of Fundación Capital, explore how tech-enabled research methods can provide a solution to this dilemma. They share how a unique, WhatsApp-based survey approach has helped Fundación Capital understand the nuanced meaning behind the responses of women who participated in a gender norms-focused messaging campaign in Paraguay.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
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Making This Year Better Than the Last: A Recent Survey Assesses the Pandemic’s Impacts on Micro and Small Businesses
Micro and small businesses dealt with massive challenges during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and even those that adapted and survived still face major struggles. Juan Carlos Thomas at TechnoServe shares the results of a recent study on COVID-19's impact on these enterprises, and explores how his organization has been supporting them – including through a crisis toolkit that helps them weather the pandemic's challenges, and through digital tools focused on business training and access to finance.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Technology, Transportation
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Africa’s Fintech Gold Rush: Why Banks Must Adapt to Survive
These are exciting times in the fintech startup ecosystem in Africa, as direct investment activity is growing at a dizzying pace. But according to Osahon Akpata at Ecobank Group, this influx of capital is also raising challenges for startups and investors – and particularly for traditional banks, which have to adjust to the emergence of these innovative and well-funded new competitors. He discusses the implications of Africa's ongoing fintech revolution for both startups and banks, and explores why partnerships between them can provide a way forward.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Below the Tip of the Iceberg: Why Systems Change is the Key to Scaling Innovations and Solving Development Challenges
In recent years there has been an increased focus on systems change in the development sector, in response to growing awareness of how underlying systemic causes are perpetuating many global challenges. María Boa-Alvarado at CIMMYT, Lennart Woltering at One CGIAR and Marcos Sanjuán at CRS-El Salvador discuss the benefits of this approach, as applied to the issue of land degradation in Central America. They explore how their organizations are using a systems thinking tool, the iceberg model, to better understand the root causes of this problem – and to provide lasting solutions.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Technology
- Tags
- innovation, scale, systems change
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Opportunity or Threat: Are Healthy Partnerships Possible Between Digital Financial Services and Microfinance Institutions in Bangladesh?
Microfinance institutions in Bangladesh reach over 32 million customers with a loan portfolio of around US $9 billion. According to Jakirul Islam at Bank Asia, partnerships with digital financial services (DFS) could benefit both microfinance and DFS providers and their customers – but these partnerships are not functioning at their full potential. He shares four key benefits that are driving interest in these collaborations, and explores their inherent challenges – and some partnership models that could address them.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology