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The Leapfrog Opportunity in ‘Know Your Customer’ Innovation: Why Africa Needs Local, Digitized KYC Solutions
Know Your Customer (KYC) is a critical process for banks, as it enables them to validate their customers’ identities to fulfill regulatory requirements and protect against fraud. But as Timbo Drayson at OkHi explains, KYC is a big and expensive problem in Africa: For instance, in Nigeria some banks are spending up to $1 million per year to manually verify identities, and 15-30% of customers never complete these processes. He explores three key challenges to KYC in Africa, and presents some tech-driven solutions that could allow the continent to leapfrog to a new global best practice for KYC.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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A Roadmap for Scaling Up Renewable Energy in Island Nations: Three Success Factors for the Eastern Caribbean’s Transition from Fossil Fuels
The Eastern Caribbean has struggled in recent years, as natural disasters – combined with the COVID-19 pandemic – have caused a precipitous drop in the tourism revenues it depends on. But as Pepukaye Bardouille at the IFC explains, transitioning to renewable energy could help address this challenge, reducing the region’s cost of electricity, supporting its climate resilience, limiting its dependence on imported fossil fuels, and producing jobs outside the tourism sector. She presents three success factors for achieving this transition – insights that could also be applicable to other island nations.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing
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Pushing the Water Boundaries: How Social Impact Incentives Can Make WASH Enterprises More Innovative, Impactful and Catalytic
The water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector is ripe for change, as it is far from being on track to achieve universal access to safe drinking water (SDG 6). According to Shabana Abbas at Aqua for All, and Bjoern Struewer and Patrizia Baffioni at Roots of Impact, impact entrepreneurs can drive the sector forward, but their funders will need to move away from the usual grant models to explore more innovative and sustainable financing approaches. They discuss one such model – Social Impact Incentives – and how it's being applied successfully to support WASH enterprises.
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- Finance, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise, WASH
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Leading the Way to Greater Impact: Why Addressing the Lack of Lead Investors is Key to Building Stronger Startups in Emerging Markets
Raising capital is a critically important function for startups. But as Patricia Chin-Sweeney at Beyond Capital Ventures explains, there is typically a shortage of investors who are willing to lead an investment round – and until a lead is secured, the process of capital raising is in limbo. And unfortunately, many startup founders are unaware of this, wasting precious time speaking to funders who cannot lead the round. She explores the value that a lead investor role can provide to both startups and investors, and discusses the need for more lead investors in Africa and other emerging markets.
- Categories
- Investing
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Decentralizing Data Management Across ESG and Impact Investing: How Blockchain Innovation Can Address the Data Gap – And the Ratings Controversy
ESG and impact investing have gone mainstream, with US $53 trillion – one-third of global assets under management – projected to be classified as ESG investments by 2025. But as Miriam Davidovic at RAZ Finance points out, investors can't direct their capital toward sustainable businesses without reliable data – and there are growing questions about whether current ESG data and ratings practices are capturing real impact. She argues that a decentralized approach to ESG and impact data management is needed, and explores several blockchain-based innovations that empower individuals to provide trustworthy, transparent, anonymous impact data.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
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The Virtuous Cycle of Representation: Why Global Health Boards Must Include the People They Serve
Much of the global health sector’s work is concentrated in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, a new report from Global Health 50/50 reveals that just a quarter of board seats at global health organizations are held by nationals of these countries, and women from LMICs hold a shameful 1% of all seats. Anuradha Gupta at Gavi explores the decades-long, system-wide failure to ensure diversity in global health decision-making, and urges these influential bodies to do a better job of representing the communities whose health they are aiming to improve.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- failure, gender equality, governance, research
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Resolving the Core Tension of Impact-Focused Fintech: A Viable Model for Reaching Rural Women with Digital Financial Services
Reaching last-mile communities is challenging for a business that also has to attend to its own bottom line. Claudia Sosa Lazo at IDEO.org discusses a partnership between IDEO.org, BRAC, bKash and the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics that is seeking profitable ways to bring digital financial services to rural women in Bangladesh. She explains how the partnership provides a model for other businesses and NGOs that hope to unlock both profit and social impact, while bringing beneficial products to the world’s most excluded communities.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Business Solutions to a Humanitarian Crisis: Nine Things Companies Must Understand to Support Refugees from Ukraine – And Around the World
As war rages in Ukraine, humanitarian efforts have struggled to keep pace with the needs of the refugees displaced by the conflict. According to Betsy Alley, an independent researcher and analyst with expertise in refugee business investment, the private sector can help. But how can businesses best contribute to something that has traditionally been a humanitarian affair? She shares nine learnings from the refugee crises of recent years, which show how enterprises and their employees can serve and empower refugees while also benefiting host communities – and their own businesses.
- Categories
- Investing