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Learning From Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs During COVID-19: What Lockdowns Teach Us About Resilience
How can entrepreneurs in emerging markets build their resilience to the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19? What tools enable them to adapt when everything around them has changed? Wendy Chamberlin at the BOMA Project and Larry Reed at Soul of Finance discuss ways to support – and learn from – African business owners during the pandemic.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Social Enterprise, Transportation
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Financing “Missing Middle” Enterprises in the Age of COVID-19: Leveraging Nontraditional Finance Pathways in Emerging Markets
COVID-19 has made access to capital for small and growing businesses in emerging markets more essential than ever. But according to Julia Kho at Triple Jump and Kusi Hornberger at Dalberg Advisors, these businesses have very different crisis-related financing needs. They explore how finance providers can understand these diverse needs and identify the best approaches to fill them.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Investing
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Giving and Receiving: Understanding the Financial Flows Between Young People and Their Parents
Young people in many emerging markets tend to live in their parents’ homes until their mid-20s, leading to a complex, dynamic interplay of financial support between generations that's particularly relevant during COVID-19. Guy Stuart at Microfinance Opportunities discusses the results of a study exploring the implications of this support for financial service providers and financial inclusion in Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
- Tags
- COVID-19, financial inclusion, research, youth
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SME Investing With a Gender Lens: The Key To COVID-19 Recovery in Emerging Markets
It can be hard to think about recovery while much of the world remains in the eye of the COVID-19 storm. But according to Vanessa Erogbogbo at the International Trade Centre and Ayesha Khanna at CARE Enterprises Inc., we must begin to envision a world on the other side of the pandemic – and that process must involve investment in small businesses that create positive economic impact for women.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Investing
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The Game-Changing Potential of a Regulatory Sandbox: Why Creating a Safe Space for Digital Innovation Is a Necessity for Financial Inclusion in Bangladesh
While Bangladesh has made notable progress in accelerating financial inclusion, around 50% of Bangladeshis still remain unbanked. As Jakirul Islam at Bank Asia points out, this highlights a need for more technological disruption – and more regulatory innovation. He explores the potential of a “regulatory sandbox” approach, in which the government provides a safe harbor for businesses to test inventive new products, services and business models.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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The Case for Stakeholder Dividends: Why It’s Time for the Financial Sector to Put Its Money Where Its Mouth Is
While the financial devastation of COVID-19 may remind America's working families of the 2008 crisis, Peter Tufano and Timothy Flacke at Commonwealth argue that this time, banks can be the heroes rather than the villains. They explain why this will require banks to make a pivotal choice between enriching their shareholders and supporting their stakeholders – including the country's most vulnerable customers.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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The Ecological Disaster of Palm Oil: Why It’s Time to Embrace Climate-Friendly Alternatives
Palm oil is in so many products that it’s quite hard to avoid. But as Jim Richards at milkadamia points out, tropical forests are being burned at an alarming rate to produce it, contributing greatly to global deforestation – which generates 15% of the planet’s total carbon emissions. He makes a passionate case for the need to switch to palm oil-free products, and discusses some sustainable alternatives.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
- Tags
- climate change
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Avoiding Another Crash: How Global Standards Set after the 2008 Crisis Prepared the Financial System to Weather COVID-19
International standard-setting bodies have been working to strengthen global financial stability ever since the 2008 crisis. And according to Robin Newnham at the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, they are now playing vitally important roles in the global response to COVID-19. He explores how the global financial system is seeing the benefits of the reforms of the past decade – and how these efforts can expand in the future.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance