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Achieving the Latina American Dream: How Entrepreneurship Can Empower Latin American Migrant Women and Their Communities
Latin American migrant women in the U.S. have the potential to be drivers of economic growth for themselves, their families, their communities and their countries — both native and naturalized. But as Carmen Correa at Pro Mujer explains, they often lack the tools and opportunities they need to build successful livelihoods, while facing unique obstacles. She explores why entrepreneurship provides a solution to these challenges, and discusses a free skilling platform that Pro Mujer offers to support Latina migrants in their entrepreneurial journey.
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- Finance
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The Rise of Embedded Finance in Africa: Three Fintech Innovators Highlight its Potential to Boost Financial Inclusion and Business Growth on the Continent
In Egypt and other African countries, recent years have seen growing usage of fintech tools to boost financial inclusion. Basil Moftah at Nclude explores the impact of one such tool: embedded finance, in which a financial product is placed within a non-financial product, customer experience or platform. He discusses how the emergence of embedded finance is revolutionizing business operations and providing a catalyst for digitization and growth, across sectors ranging from hospitality to agriculture and pharmaceuticals.
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- Finance
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Announcing Kiva’s Bold New Impact Strategy: The Nonprofit Microfinance Pioneer Shares its Refined Approach — And Unveils the Process Behind its Development
Both social enterprises and nonprofits need inspiring missions to thrive, and when those missions are coupled with well-crafted impact strategies, the change they seek to make is more likely to become reality. Kiva CEO Vishal Ghotge announces the pioneering microfinance nonprofit's latest impact strategy, explains how it will shape Kiva's next phase — and reveals the process behind its creation, so it can serve as a resource for other organizations.
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- Finance, Investing, Social Enterprise
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How Fintech is Enabling Progress Toward the SDGs — And Why it’s Time for Investors to Double Down
Due to high interest rates and other macroeconomic challenges, there's been a global slowdown in venture capital funding to tech firms. David Grimaud at Bamboo Capital Partners explains how this lack of investment is impacting fintech companies in emerging markets, putting not only financial inclusion but other development priorities at risk. He explores how fintech innovators are advancing multiple SDGs, and how the investment community — especially impact-focused investors — can better support them.
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Agricultural Insurance + Energy Access: An Innovative Pilot Program Reveals the Value of Bundled Services — And the Need for Cross-Sector Partnerships
As the world works to achieve SDG7, it's becoming clear that cross-sector partnerships will be key to meeting its goal of affordable, sustainable energy for all by 2030. Anshul Patel at Bboxx — a leading distributor of pay-as-you-go solar energy products — shares learnings from the company's recent partnership with Pula, an agri-insurance technology firm, which insured Bboxx customers against the climate-related crop failures that can lead to payment defaults and repossession of their energy products.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Finance, Technology
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A $200 Billion Opportunity: What Payment Data Shows About the Rise of Africa’s Digital Economy
Africa’s digital economy is growing rapidly, and according to Agosta Liko at Pesapal, businesses, financial institutions and governments could add US $200 billion to the continent’s GDP in the next six years by supporting that growth. He shares payment data that highlights how, and where, digital transactions are happening in Africa — both online and in person — and explores what that means for the digital economy’s growth prospects in the region.
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- Finance, Technology
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In Pursuit of a Cashless Africa: Learning from Nigeria’s Struggle to Accelerate its Transition to Digital Finance
The use of cash for payments is dwindling globally, while the electronic payments industry is burgeoning. As Osahon Akpata at Ecobank points out, this growth is also happening in Africa, though cash still remains king. He highlights several factors that are driving both the growth of digital finance and the ongoing usage of cash on the continent, exploring how African countries can accelerate their transition to a cashless economy — and what they can learn from Nigeria's struggles in that area.
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- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
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Does Universal Basic Income Really Work? Understanding the Early Findings from the World’s Largest UBI Experiment, and Their Implications for Financial Resilience
While the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a poverty solution has been widely debated, there has been limited evidence of its effectiveness. But as Tavneet Suri at MIT and Stella Klemperer at Flourish Ventures explain, that's beginning to change. They share early results from a 12-year randomized control trial exploring the long-term impact of UBI on 23,000 people in 195 villages in rural Kenya — the largest and longest UBI experiment to-date. The findings offer compelling evidence of UBI's impact on financial resilience, and can help inform the design of other UBI and cash transfer programs.
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- Finance