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Understanding Digital Public Infrastructure: What it Means — and Why it Matters — to Businesses and Governments in Emerging Markets
In recent months, there has been an outpouring of media coverage and analysis on the topic of digital public infrastructure (DPI). David Porteous, Priya Vora, Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi and Peter Rabley explore the ongoing efforts to develop a shared understanding of what DPI means, and how it can impact global digital development. They urge DPI stakeholders to look beyond narrow, government-centered use cases and existing digital systems to envision next-generation applications based on public and private sector collaboration.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Yunus Was Right — Credit is Indeed a Human Right, and Savings is Important Too: Why the Microfinance Sector Must Avoid the ‘Circular Firing Squad’ and Promote Multiple Approaches to Financial Inclusion
Alex Counts, financial inclusion pioneer and founder of Grameen Foundation, took issue with Jeffrey Ashe’s recent NextBillion article, “Yunus Was Wrong—Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right.” He argues that, instead of seeing the world through an “either/or” lens, the financial inclusion sector should embrace multiple tools, including credit, savings, insurance and more — and he urges today's changemakers to avoid promoting one social innovation at the expense of others.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise
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Sweeter Prospects for Cocoa Farmers: A Recent Study Shows How Formal Land Rights Improve the Financial Outlook for Smallholders in Cote d’Ivoire
Cocoa is one of the world’s most prized foods, but the smallholder farmers who produce it typically live in poverty and often lack formal rights to the land they're farming. Scott Graham and Anahit Tevosyan at FINCA International explore how a partnership between global chocolate companies and other industry and development sector players is strengthening farmers' property rights in Cote d’Ivoire — the source of 45% of the world’s cocoa — thereby aiming to improve their financial health and resilience.
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- Agriculture, Finance
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Yunus Was Wrong — Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right: Here’s How the Financial Inclusion Sector Can Shift its Focus
After playing a key role in the early development of the microfinance sector, Jeffrey Ashe went to Bosnia in the mid-1990s to consult on a new microfinance project. In those days, microcredit was widely viewed as a silver bullet that could end poverty, but while working in Bosnia, he learned that informal savings groups were already providing an effective alternative to formal loans in the local community. Ashe has spent the subsequent decades studying and supporting savings groups in countries around the world. He shares research that illuminates these groups' vast global impact, and argues that they could achieve far more if the financial inclusion sector supported them.
- Categories
- Finance
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Forget about Mobile Money, Invest in Insurtech Instead: The Untapped Triple Bottom Line Opportunity in Nigeria
Nigeria has one of the lowest insurance penetration rates in the world, at just 0.5%. But as Brian Yu at Shecluded explains, this low uptake means the industry is poised for disruption and growth. He explores how insurtech innovators are addressing the key problems plaguing the sector — namely, a lack of accessibility, affordability and customer trust — and calls for funders to look past their traditional focus on mobile money and invest in the insurtech businesses that are transforming the way the industry serves low-income customers.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
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How Inclusive Finance Can Address the World’s Most Fundamental Challenge: Food Security, Nutrition and the European Microfinance Award 2023
According to the World Food Programme, the world is facing “a food crisis of unprecedented proportions.” Joana Afonso, Sam Mendelson, Fernando Naranjo Galindo and Daniel Rozas at the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) explore the multiple drivers and dimensions of food insecurity, and explain why the financial inclusion sector is uniquely placed to address it. They share how the e-MFP's European Microfinance Award 2023 is promoting innovative solutions to the crisis through its focus on “Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition.”
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- Agriculture, Finance, Transportation
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Bringing Agricultural Insurance to Climate-Vulnerable Farmers: A Unique Pilot Program in Nepal Shows How to Unlock the Benefits of Index-Based Insurance for Smallholders
Nepal's topography and climatic conditions make it uniquely prone to natural disasters. As Maria Perdomo at UNCDF explains, these disasters threaten the country's economic development, and smallholder farmers and rural women are disproportionately affected. She discusses a UNCDF pilot program that brought agricultural insurance coverage to Nepali smallholders, and shares learnings from the program that could inform efforts to deliver insurance to farmers in other climate-vulnerable countries in Asia and beyond.
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- Agriculture, Environment, Finance
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Do Formal Savings Accounts Lead to Better Results for Low-Income Users?: Lessons from Two Customer-Centric Research Studies in Africa
The Savings Learning Lab was a six-year initiative that supported learning among Mastercard Foundation’s savings-focused financial inclusion programs across Africa. Program partners Savings at the Frontier and Scale2Save employed two different research approaches to better understand the impact of formal savings accounts on the lives of low-income people. Jenny Morgan at FinEquity discusses these approaches and the insights they generated, which went beyond access and usage to reveal the nuances of clients' savings preferences and behaviors.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment