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Defining ‘Good Practices’ in Microfinance: Smart Campaign Director Isabelle Barrès addresses the thorny issues of profits and pricing – and discusses its next steps
The Smart Campaign was launched to promote customer protection in microfinance – most notably by certifying the practices of participating MFIs. But critics have taken issue with the profits and pricing of some certified institutions. The campaign's director, Isabelle Barrès, responds to these criticisms, and discusses its next steps, in part two of our Q&A.
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- Impact Assessment
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An Uphill Climb: Smart Campaign director Isabelle Barrès, on the challenges of promoting client protection in microfinance
The Smart Campaign’s numbers are growing: It has certified 39 microfinance institutions as meeting its client protection standards, and these MFIs now serve slightly more than 20 million clients. But achieving this momentum hasn’t been an easy task for the campaign – or for the industry it’s trying to improve. Smart Campaign director Isabelle Barrès discusses the challenges in part one of this Q&A.
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- Impact Assessment
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Previewing SOCAP15: A rundown of this year’s agenda – and a $500 discount for NextBillion readers!
Now in its eighth year, SOCAP15 will convene leading impact investors, world-class entrepreneurs and innovative cross-sector practitioners for three full days of networking and engaging content. The event will be held at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, CA, Oct. 6-9, and NextBillion readers can get a $500 discount.
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- Social Enterprise
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Feel Better Now, Pay Later: AfriMedico founders are hoping an ancient Japanese drug sales system will work in Africa
Okigusuri is a drug sales system that worked for centuries in Japan and has been successfully exported to other Asian countries. The founders of AfriMedico are betting the system – in which households are given a box of medicine, and they pay only for what they use – will work in Africa, too.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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From Pilots to Systems (Part 2): Achieving systemic and scalable private sector engagement in tuberculosis care and prevention in Asia
When TB treatment providers are already well connected to the broader health system, and can be reached as a group, the task of engagement is more manageable. But that is the exception and not the rule in global health care markets. The PPM intermediary organization is the beginning of a consolidating force in an otherwise fragmented health care system.
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- Environment, Health Care
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Weekly Roundup 7-11-15: Sports for Girls, Marriage Counseling for EU/Greece, Tweets for All
The NextBillion team is a bit far-flung as the summer season hits high gear, so we’re continuing our experiment of combining our weekly Roundup with our list of Twitter favorites.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Jayashree Industries: Achieving gender equity one sanitary pad at a time
What if a little, two-by-four inch piece of soft, cottony material could reduce gender inequality and restore the dignity of women in underdeveloped nations? Indian entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham has discovered that even the most basic sanitary pad can allow for women to more fully participate in society.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Our Newest E-Book, ‘Going Off Grid’: Leaders building a grid-free future with limitless potential
In many countries, the once inflexible electrical grid is being reshaped and retooled in a creatively destructive process that offers access and returns on investment with less risk. The “Going Off Grid” series, which we are proud to present to you here in e-book form, explored new technologies, new business models and new forms of investing and participation in the developing market of energy infrastructure.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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