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Financial Inclusion that Works for Women: The European Microfinance Award 2022
Lending to women clients has been at the center of microfinance since its modern inception. And as Joana Afonso, Gabriela Erice, Sam Mendelson and Daniel Rozas at the European Microfinance Platform point out, there has undoubtedly been progress in promoting women’s financial inclusion. But they argue that a myopic focus on outreach too often undermines the sector's understanding of the specific barriers women face. They discuss how the 2022 European Microfinance Award's focus on “Financial Inclusion that Works for Women" aims to encourage more effective gender strategies.
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- Finance
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Deconstructing the Monolith: Why Understanding Women’s Individual Needs is Key to Closing the Gender Gap in Financial Inclusion
How can financial service providers tailor their products to boost women's financial inclusion? Scott Graham and Anahit Tevosyan at FINCA discuss the findings of a survey of 2,800 financial consumers in the DRC, which showed – perhaps counterintuitively – that focusing on gender as the defining characteristic of a female client is exactly the wrong approach. They explore why it's necessary to “deconstruct the monolith” of female clients by digging into sub-segments of the market to understand their specific needs and constraints.
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- Finance
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Insuring the Next 400 Million in India: Why the Mutual Insurance Model Presents a Clear Path to Scale
COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on India’s healthcare system, causing challenges ranging from a lack of medical oxygen to limited hospital capacity. But as Payal Agarwal at Uplift Mutuals explains, the pandemic has also brought to light the inadequate insurance infrastructure in the country, which accounts for almost 18% of the world's population but only 1.72% of the global insurance market. She shares the results of a new report exploring the potential of mutual and cooperative insurance to close that gap in India, and discusses how this model can be scaled.
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- Finance, Health Care
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Understanding COVID-19’s Impact on PAYGo Solar: Data From a Pioneering Study Reveals Key Insights About the Sector’s Financial Sustainability
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on PAYGo solar, causing up to 23 million people and 600,000 enterprises to miss out on improved energy access. Drew Corbyn at GOGLA, Bill Gallery at IFC and Roan Borst at Triple Jump share the results of a first-of-its-kind study that measured the impact of the crisis on the sector’s financial performance, based on data collected from 13 PAYGo solar companies. They discuss what these findings mean for the industry as it works to emerge from the pandemic’s ongoing disruptions.
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- Coronavirus, Energy, Finance, Impact Assessment
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Improving Financial Solutions for Women Micro-Entrepreneurs: A Report Highlights Key Focus Areas for Microfinance Providers
The disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women is well-established – and for women micro-entrepreneurs, these impacts are compounded by existing business, financial and household challenges. Brit Heiring at Kiva and Liz Larson at UNESCAP explore how microfinance institutions and other providers can design financial solutions that meet these entrepreneurs’ unique needs. They share data from a report that focuses on the realities facing women micro-entrepreneurs, and explore how financial service providers can effectively support them.
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- Finance
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NextBillion’s 2022 Reader and Guest Writer Survey: Share Your Views and Help Shape Our Coverage
As an open forum for the development through enterprise sector, almost all of NextBillion's content is guest written. That's why it's important for us to check in periodically with our writers and readers, to get a better sense of how well our coverage is suiting your needs – and what we could do better. To that end, we've put together a brief, six-question survey, and we invite both writers and readers to share your views. Your input will be highly valuable as we work to highlight the businesses, innovations, debates and leaders that are shaping the sector.
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- Agriculture, Coronavirus, Education, Energy, Environment, Finance, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology, WASH
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Announcing Our New Series: NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles
NextBillion runs our "Most Influential Articles" contest at the end of each year, in which we select 12 of our most-read articles from the previous year and invite readers to vote for their favorites. Since 2021 marked the 10th year of the contest, we're commemorating a full decade of thought-provoking analysis and opinion from entrepreneurs, investors, researchers and others in the emerging markets business and social enterprise sectors with a new series highlighting all of NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles from 2012 to today.
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- Agriculture, Coronavirus, Energy, Finance, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Making Financial Health a Global Reality: Four Strategic Directions for Increasing Customer-Centricity and Business Growth
Financial service providers that focus on improving their customer experience report growing revenue and greater profits. Yet as Pallavi Dhakal, Ankita Singh and Neha Kumar at UNCDF’s Centre for Financial Health point out, despite some notable progress, the financial services sector still has far to go to achieve customer-centricity – particularly in emerging markets. They share in-depth research that explores how providers in these markets can become more customer-centric by prioritizing financial health in their business strategy.
- Categories
- Finance