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Rising Star or Red Flag?: South Africa’s financial inclusion growth raises questions for the entire industry
South Africa placed second in a recent Brookings Institute study comparing financial inclusion in 21 developing countries – surpassed only by Kenya. But though this has led to celebration in some quarters, there’s a troubling aspect to these findings. Illana Melzer argues that the risks of burgeoning financial access and usage are too significant for beneficiaries, development organizations and donors to ignore.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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A New Wave of Capacity Building: Enabling private investment in the university education of students in developing countries
Human capital is a nation’s most critical capacity, yet many students in developing countries can't afford a higher education. And neither scholarships and financial aid nor bank loans are sufficient to meet the level of need. Brighter Investment enables private investors to fund the university education of students in the developing world, in exchange for a fixed percentage of their future income - its co-founder discusses their unique model.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Export, Learn … Profit: A new randomized evaluation reveals emerging market businesses that export have the advantage
Export promotion programs work under the assumption that the experience of exporting helps firms learn new skills and techniques and thereby become more productive. However, until now, no research determined whether exporting actually causes businesses to improve. Innovations for Poverty Action helped conduct the first randomized controlled trial investigating whether firms actually learn through exporting.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Closing the Market Gap: The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership trains female entrepreneurs to sell a varitey of products in remote regions
The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership created a distribution social enterprise model that trains female entrepreneurs as a door-to-door distribution network in remote regions. The model aims to create livelihoods for female entrepreneurs and to increase the access and affordability of essential and pro-poor goods to BoP communities.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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Industry Emerging from the Rubble in Haiti: How building skills locally through community networks can create sustainable businesses
Throughout the street markets in Port-au-Prince, a growing corps of entrepreneurs – mostly women – is helping the fuel-efficient stove market take root, showing how empowered local businesses, even in the poorest and most difficult-to-navigate environments, can create sustainable enterprises that employ and train local workers.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
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Weekly Roundup – Nothing Random About It: ‘Graduation’ programs for the ultra-poor get validation through randomized control trials
Little research has been done into the long-term effectiveness of "graduation" programs to eliminate extreme poverty. But a big three-year study of 21,000 ultra-poor people in six countries appears to validate not only the approach, but also the return on investment.
- Categories
- Education
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In Ghana, the Diaspora is Fueling a Social Enterprise Liftoff : Often well-funded, well-educated returnees are contributing to a ‘brain gain’
Social enterprise in Ghana is taking off and Ghanaians returning from living and studying abroad are playing a key role. But are there lessons from the returning diaspora that could strengthen social enterprise activity even more? A recent British Council and ODI study explores the landscape.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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The Value of ‘Waste’: Waste Capital Partners Sees Value in Impact Bonds, Franchising
Parag Gupta, CEO of Waste Capital Partners, has a vivid example of how much solid waste is produced each week across urban India: twice the weight of the Empire State Building. Only about half of that garbage is actually collected by municipalities for processing. The for-profit and nonprofit organization hopes to expand with impact bonds and franchises to help both farmers and trash pickers.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Social Enterprise
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