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Chocolate at Risk?: Why sustainable finance is crucial to ensuring a steady cocoa supply for the world’s chocolate industry
Smallholder cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire produce 40 percent of the world cocoa supply. Yet the vast majority still live in poverty due to declining productivity, and in the absence of long-term financing opportunities, many have been changing to other crops. Rainforest Alliance’s Helen Roy describes how socially-minded investors are mobilizing capital to help these farmers revive their land.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
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The Best-Kept Secret in Impact Investing: A little-known legal tool lets businesses tap mainstream investor capital – so why don’t more social enterprises use it?
A common complaint in impact investing is the lack of options for non-wealthy investors. Many feel that this hamstrings both mainstream investors and the social enterprises that could use their capital. But as Jenny Kassan, CEO of Cutting Edge Capital, describes it in part 4 of our Impact Investing Insights series, a solution to this problem already exists.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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Seven Strategies to Attract 40+ Million New Customers: How U.S. banks can serve immigrants today and tomorrow
The surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border has put the immigration debate back in the headlines. But CFSI’s Thea Garon argues that the more important issue is whether the millions of immigrants who already live in the U.S. have what they need to succeed. She lays out new research from CFSI on how financial service providers can serve immigrants - both now and if comprehensive immigration reform is passed.
- Categories
- Investing
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Our Communities are Ours to Own: How Calvert Foundation is empowering small U.S. investors to strengthen their local cities through impact investments
Impact investing allows us to reframe the concept of “the investor” in an inclusive way that challenges all of us to invest in the future we hope to achieve, says Calvert Foundation’s Patrick Davis. Calvert’s "Ours To Own" movement embodies that goal, allowing people to invest as little as $20 to strengthen the communities they live in and love.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Nigeria’s Booming, But Can Health Care Keep Up?: Innovators across the country are designing new methods to reach more people
Nigeria now has the largest economy in Africa, but poverty levels there have remained stubbornly high and extending health care to the country’s large and diverse population is an enormous challenge. Still, innovators are designing new methods to reach more Nigerians with quality, affordable care.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment
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Social Entrepreneurship and Global Warming
The consequences of a temperature rise greater than 2°C would be catastrophic for all of humanity, but the greatest impact would be on the planet’s poorest people, who face profound loss from flooding, displacement and food scarcity. Social entrepreneurs are among those best positioned to improve the lives of the poor and mitigate global warming, says Thane Kreiner.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- renewable energy
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June’s Most Popular, Most Shared Posts: Failure and Success in Microfinance Products, Wireless Currency and Bold Ideas in Global Health Lead the List
Winston Churchill said: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
NextBillion’s most-read blog post in June explained how failure has helped influence microfinance institutions better understand their customers’ needs.- Categories
- Health Care
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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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