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Supporting Financial Health Startups: Four Lessons for Impact Investors, Foundations and Governments
Over the past few years, Village Capital has run Finance Forward, a global coalition to support early-stage entrepreneurs building tech-enabled solutions around financial health. Village Capital CEO Allie Burns shares highlights from a new report that analyzed data from the 1,000+ companies that applied to the program around the world. The report paints a picture of the global state of financial health startups, and offers lessons for impact investors, foundations and government leaders who hope to grow the ecosystem for financial health innovation.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Investing, Technology
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How Behavioral Science Can Improve Digital Services: Exploring the Impact of an Innovative Accelerator Program on Social Enterprises in Latin America
Though behavioral science is a relatively new field of study in Latin America, it is increasingly being leveraged to address financial inclusion and other needs in the region – and it has particular relevance to social enterprises working in the digital space. Juan Pablo Marichi at New Ventures and Santiago Mesa at Acceso explore how New Ventures' SUMA accelerator program has applied the study of behavioral science to the issues of financial health and inclusion, and share some lessons that participants – including Acceso – have learned in the process.
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- Agriculture, Finance, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Reaching Informal Savings Groups with Formal Financial Products: A Study’s Unexpected Findings Reveal the Challenges of Digitizing Transactions
Formalizing the financial activities of informal savings groups has long been a priority in financial inclusion. Since 2015, the Savings at the Frontier program has worked to deepen the relationships between these groups and formal financial service providers, on the assumption that this would lead group members to open individual accounts and reap the benefits of digital transactions. But as Raksha Vasudevan explains, the results of a program evaluation have challenged these assumptions. She explores these findings, and their implications for efforts to digitize informal savings groups.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Technology
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Boosting STEM Training for African Women: Why Tech-Related Skills are Key to the Continent’s Progress
As the world becomes more reliant on digital technology, the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) training is growing. But as Rachita Sharma at Girl Power Talk explains, there's a wide STEM skills gap between men and women – including in sub-Saharan Africa, where women’s lack of technical skills is undermining their capacity to achieve their economic potential. She explores some of the challenges that are preventing African women from pursuing STEM-related job skills or careers, and discusses some solutions to these issues.
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- Education, Technology
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NextBillion’s 2022 Reader and Guest Writer Survey: Share Your Views and Help Shape Our Coverage
As an open forum for the development through enterprise sector, almost all of NextBillion's content is guest written. That's why it's important for us to check in periodically with our writers and readers, to get a better sense of how well our coverage is suiting your needs – and what we could do better. To that end, we've put together a brief, six-question survey, and we invite both writers and readers to share your views. Your input will be highly valuable as we work to highlight the businesses, innovations, debates and leaders that are shaping the sector.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Coronavirus, Education, Energy, Environment, Finance, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology, WASH
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How Cross-Industry Collaboration Can Spur the Digitalisation of the Last-Mile Distribution Sector
Last-mile distributors play a critical role in bringing energy and other life-changing products and services to customers in sub-Saharan Africa, and digitalisation is key to enabling these companies to operate at scale. But as Javier Baranda Alonso at Energy 4 Impact explains, both distributors and digital service providers often struggle to understand and service each other’s needs. He shares insights from a research report that highlights ways to accelerate the digitalisation of last-mile distribution by building bridges between the two sectors.
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- Energy, Social Enterprise, Technology, Telecommunications
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The Key Ingredients of COVID-19 Adaptation: How Non-Profits Leveraged Flexible Funding to Navigate the Pandemic
In October 2020, Instiglio, an anonymous donor and the Global Development Incubator launched the COVID-19 Adaptation Fund, which supported the efforts of nine non-profits in Kenya and Rwanda to adapt their programming to the challenges of the pandemic. These non-profits recently shared their experiences utilizing the funding, and Mateo Zárate and Sebastian Chaskel at Instiglio highlight some key takeaways that can be useful to other impact-focused organizations working to maintain services during the pandemic – and prepare for future crises.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Impact Assessment, Technology
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Leveraging Big Data to Improve Mental Health After COVID-19: An Innovative Research Method Reveals Unmet Needs and Untapped Opportunities in Nigeria
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a marked impact on the state of global mental health, particularly in emerging regions like Africa. According to Ravi Sreenath and Amy Nguyen at Ripple Research, this has generated a significant need – and a market opportunity – for digital health tools, as well as a need for better data. They assess the state of mental health in Nigeria, analyzing data from millions of conversations across news sites, blogs and social media platforms – and explore how this data reveals new opportunities for social enterprises and investors.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
- Tags
- climate health, COVID-19, data
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