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Failure to Launch: Why Mobile Money Hasn’t Taken off in Nigeria – And How the Sector Can Turn Things Around
In contrast to other African countries, Nigeria’s digital finance sector has yet to take off, with one survey finding that just 0.01 percent of Nigerians have a mobile money account. Critics suggest the lack of progress is due to banks rather than telecoms leading the charge. But research from the Helix Institute of Digital Finance suggests that other factors may be responsible - and points toward some solutions.
- Categories
- Education, Finance, Technology
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Healthy Foods and New Jobs, Part 2: Infrastructure matters
On the way to introducing a food cart vendor business in Benin, West Africa, MamaCarts has encountered all sorts of problems with sanitation, incorporation and the government. But there’s a positive spin on these infrastructure gaps: Alternative solutions do exist and people circumnavigate these difficulties on a daily basis.
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- Agriculture, Education, Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Healthy Foods and New Jobs, Part 1: MamaCarts learns valuable lessons while launching food cart delivery service from scratch
MamaCarts began by pitching an idea at a business plan competition and culminated with receiving a 2013 Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Challenge Award. That’s all there is to starting a food cart delivery service in Benin, West Africa, right? Wrong.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Marketing Nutrition for the Bop: New Report by Hystra Focuses on Successes and Failures of Market-Based Approaches
A new study by Hystra is designed to find more large-scale initiatives that leverage market-based mechanisms to bring the benefits of innovative products and services to more families at the BoP, and help solve the scourge of malnutrition.
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- Education, Health Care
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The Impact of Inclusion: CGAP report looks at recent evidence of how financial inclusion can help the poor
There’s a strong consensus that access to suitable financial services can help poor households improve their lives, while spurring economic activity. But what is the evidence for these positive impacts? CGAP tackled that topic in a recent Focus Note, and we spoke with Nina Holle, an associate microfinance analyst at CGAP, and a co-author of the report.
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- Education, Impact Assessment
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Weekly roundup 6-14-14: When conventional wisdom gets upended
When conventional wisdom gets upended, well, we’re all a little better off for it. Here are two examples from this week, both of which dispel myths that have a tendency to solidify into facts.
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- Education, Technology, Telecommunications
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NexThought Monday – MNCs, the Grassroots and the Future of the BoP
Santa Clara State University’s Jim Koch says two big conferences in the last ten years have come to frame BoP market development efforts. What can we learn from what did – and what notably did not – transpire in the decade between the two gatherings? Among other things, Koch says major corporations have been greatly eclipsed by grassroots innovators.
- Categories
- Education
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Afford Two, Eat One: A new report explores financial inclusion in rural Myanmar
Myanmar is a country with very low formal banking penetration, but changes are afoot that will stimulate domestic financial activity. In March of this year a team of Myanmar-based researchers mapped the changing financial landscape in the country, aiming to provide a foundational reference for organizations wishing to develop products and services for financially constrained consumers.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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