-
Who Asks the Question May be as Important as the Question Itself: When the surveyed become the surveyors, monitoring and evaluation becomes localized
With Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) moving into the mainstream of the development industry, it’s time for NGOs to start documenting their programs in deeper ways. One way to do that, according to Semilla Nueva, is to localize the process.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Impact Assessment
-
Marketing the ‘Real Cool Honey’ Sachets: Launch lessons from Asali Poa in Kenya
Find a product-market fit and then execute flawlessly. Both are tough and have high risks that you need to overcome with the launch process. Here are a few big lessons from Honey Care Africa’s little sachet of honey, which we call Asali Poa (translated as "real cool honey"). We launched the product commercially in 2014 in Nairobi and currently reach 3,000 points of purchase.
- Categories
- Technology
-
Assessing ROI in Educational Development: In India, assessment tools are still lacking, but change is coming
In India, there is a growing realization that quality of school education has to significantly improve in India, particularly for underprivileged students. Prachi Windlass at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation says a wider dialogue on applying a robust assessment framework to education in India is needed.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
-
NexThought Monday – Second Chances in Global Development: How savings and lending groups can achieve what microcredit hasn’t
Jeffrey Ashe’s early research on behalf of USAID helped make microfinance a global development phenomenon. He now believes that savings and lending groups could have an impact that’s just as profound, but with a key difference: while microfinance struggles to reach the very poor, he says, savings and lending groups are expressly designed to meet their needs.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- savings
-
Cash Versus Cows (Part 1): Looking at the benefits of asset versus cash transfer programs
Is it better to give a cow or cash? Are cash and asset transfers hand-outs or a hand up for the extreme poor? BRAC examined the two approaches, and in the first installment of a two-part post, it compares the impact of cash transfers versus physical productive assets like livestock, seed and agricultural inputs, or a bundle of goods for petty sales.
- Categories
- Agriculture
-
Curbing the “Impact Impostors”: The growing movement toward transparency in impact investing
Impact investing’s rising popularity has spawned some unfortunate side effects. For instance, as demand for a social component has grown among investors, so have efforts to brand standard equity investments with the impact label – even when their actual impact is negligible. In the final post of his series, Bill Burckart details the efforts of policy makers, regulators and investors to address this issue.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
-
5 Success Factors for Technology Distribution and Adoption in the Last Mile
How can innovative technologies be distributed and adopted at scale in the last mile? This is a key question driving social enterprises and nonprofits aiming to leverage the power of innovative products designed for the poor. Kopernik, a nonprofit headquartered in Indonesia, has consolidated its observations into five key factors – factors that Project Manager Tomohiro Hamakwa hopes will be useful for other enterprises hoping to make market inroads.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
-
Better Loans for Better Housing: How Housing Microfinance and Strategic Value Chains Can Help Alleviate the Low-Income Housing Deficit
The majority of the world’s population lives in cities, and much of our future population growth is projected to occur in cities in the developing world. But in spite of the demand, the BoP housing market has been largely handicapped by informality and undeveloped channels for financing and technical assistance. Gary Carrier explores a number of market-based solutions.
- Categories
- Finance
- Tags
- housing, lending, microfinance
Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter, "NextBillion Notes"
Published each Wednesday, our e-newsletter features NextBillion's latest original articles, along with a selection of news, jobs, bizdev opportunities and events from our recent coverage — and regular conference ticket giveaways.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.