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Financial Inclusion is Failing Farmers: How the Sector Can Finally Reach the $200 Billion Smallholder Market
There are 450 million smallholder farmers supporting about 2 billion people worldwide. Yet financing available to farmers lags behind the need, which is estimated in excess of $200 billion. Blaine Stephens of MIX and Mike Warmington of One Acre Fund explore the reasons why and offer potential solutions – including a new, centralized directory their organizations are building, which provides useful information on existing smallholder finance products.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Why Startup Accelerators Won’t Create the Global Climate Technology Revolution
Accelerators may be a great way to launch the next Pokémon Go app or even Airbnb, but they're not as suited for climate startups in low- and middle-income countries. Jean-Louis Racine, leader of the infoDev Climate Technology Program at the World Bank Group, explores several reasons why accelerators are "at best an incomplete tool for building climate tech sectors."
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Social Enterprise, Technology
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‘Internet Access is Like Oxygen’: Converging Connectivity and Energy Access
Microsoft’s Affordable Access Initiative is providing grants to internet access and related services companies and startups reaching underserved communities in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and North America. In June, the tech giant announced the second year of grantees. Paul Garnett, senior director of the Affordable Access Initiative at Microsoft, explores how internet connectivity can have a ripple effect.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Technology, Telecommunications
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From Extremely Poor to Entrepreneur: A Starter Asset Combined with Mentorship Forges Pathway Out of Poverty
Today Arfa Bibi runs a successful vegetable farming business in India. Only a few years ago, however, Bibi and her husband struggled to feed their family and she even resorted to begging. Her transformation into entrepreneur came thanks to Kolkata-based nonprofit Bandhan-Konnagar's graduation model program Targeting the Hardcore-Poor, whose success was cited in a six-country MIT study of 21,000 of the world's poorest people.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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From Beehive Fences to Coconut Bombs: 10 Non-Chemical Pest-Control Innovations for the Global South
Farm-raiding elephants and malarial mosquitoes are among the pests that plague the Global South. But farmers there also contend with pests that are all too familiar on farms anywhere in the world: harvest-munching rats and mice, for example. Rob Goodier at Engineering for Change lists 10 non-chemical pest-control solutions designed for any place resources are constrained.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Deprived or Different?: Tips for Social Entrepreneurs Working Across Cultures
Not all people value the same things. This is crucial information for social entrepreneurs working across cultures, says the author, Andrea Nelson Trice, who conducted more than 70 related interviews around the world. She offers a few tips to social entrepreneurs on how they can make sense of their customers' differing priorities and dreams, and how these might impact an enterprise’s success.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Geodata Technology Moving Into New Fields. Literally.
Geodata and ICT applications help farmers with precision farming, leading to increased yields and improved quality. This information has not yet been made available to financial institutions at a large scale, but it has the potential to increase access to finance for smallholder farmers. The Rabobank Foundation and NpM have launched a Board of Inspiration to help speed the process.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
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Creative Climbing: How Impact Enterprises are Overcoming Obstacles in East Africa
In 2016, Intellecap undertook a study to better understand how East African impact entrepreneurs manage to design viable business models despite the various market challenges. The insights from the study can inform inclusive development in the region and across the global south. The study classified impact enterprises across three levers based on their interaction with the BoP: access, ability and knowledge.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology