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Banking on Human Capital: What Financial Institutions Need to Do – Now – to Enable a COVID-19 Recovery
Every crisis carries its own unique signature, and COVID-19 is likely to be defined by a series of flare-ups and lockdowns, says Elisabeth Rhyne at the Financial Access Initiative. Within that scenario, the financial inclusion sector needs to determine the most effective ways to reduce the pandemic's impact on vulnerable people and businesses – and it needs to start immediately.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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Keeping the Lights On: How PAYGo Solar Can Offer Customer Relief During COVID-19
Off-grid solar delivers essential energy to millions of people, helping make households, business and institutions more resilient to the COVID-19 crisis. But as analysts at BFA, CGAP and GOGLA explain, the pandemic threatens the industry, particularly its very successful pay-as-you-go business model. They explore how companies could enable customers to continue using their solar home systems during the pandemic, with reduced – or even without – customer payments.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Energy
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The Informal Economy is Complicating Government Responses to COVID-19: Will the Crisis Push Millions Toward Formality?
As COVID-19 devastates the global economy, many governments have designed support measures to help businesses and workers survive. But as Jill Lagos Shemin and James Dailey point out, this support may be ineffective in lower-income countries, where most small businesses and their employees work in the informal economy, lacking bank accounts and even valid ID. They explore some solutions governments can pursue – and trade-offs they will have to accept.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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Africa’s Youth Employment During a COVID-19 Recession: We Must Innovate to Achieve a Job-Rich Recovery
As COVID-19 ravages the global economy, how can we protect existing jobs and quickly produce new ones – especially in markets like Africa, where youth unemployment was already high? According to Stephen Hunt and Neil Fleming at the Challenges Group, tackling this issue will require the development sector to innovate – and recognize that some of its favored approaches aren't working.
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- Tags
- COVID-19
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Research During a Pandemic: Leaner and Faster Poverty Measurement in the Time of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is pushing research projects around the world to move from face-to-face data collection to shorter, phone-based methods. But as Elliott Collins and John Branch at Innovations for Poverty Action point out, these changes can present challenges for researchers studying how the pandemic affects poor and vulnerable households. They explore some strategies for measuring poverty under these constraints, based on IPA’s experience with lean, remote research.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- COVID-19, data, poverty alleviation, research
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Big Data in a Time of Crisis: Maximizing its Value – And Avoiding its Risks – In the Fight Against COVID-19
About 2 million people around the world have been infected by the coronavirus, and the numbers continue to grow. Yet this data reveals only a fraction of the scale of the crisis. As Jessica Espey at SDSN TReNDS points out, the pandemic has exposed the acute weakness of the world’s data systems. But she cautions that, in modernizing these systems, we must not sacrifice our long-term data rights for short-term benefits.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Technology, Telecommunications
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Remote Business Coaching Made Sense Even Before COVID-19 – Now it’s a Necessity
The coronavirus is forcing us all to do things differently. But as Donna Rosa argues, in some cases that may be a good thing. For instance, microenterprises in low-income countries have long needed basic business management skills, yet the development sector has often failed to deliver this training effectively. Now, as the COVID-19 pandemic pushes many interactions online, she argues that it’s time to increase the focus on distance coaching for these small businesses.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Education
- Tags
- business education, COVID-19, edtech
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How Will Last-Mile Distributors Adapt to and Survive the COVID-19 Crisis?
COVID-19 is creating major challenges for last-mile distributors around the world. And though these businesses are both nimble and resilient, they urgently need financial and technical support. Emma Colenbrander at the Global Distributors Collective explores how investors, NGOs and other stakeholders can help the sector to survive this crisis, and to continue to deliver impact as the pandemic subsides.
- Categories
- Coronavirus