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Why Microfinance Should Embrace – Not Resist – A New Brand
We've launched our Most Influential Post of 2016 contest, and every day through Jan. 2 we'll publish another monthly winner included in the competition. This article, the most-viewed post on NextBillion for February, discusses the profound rebranding of microcredit over the past 25 years. There's also a list of the other best-read posts in 2016 and an opportunity to vote for your favorite.
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- Uncategorized
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Join ‘The Economist’ in a Discussion About the Future of Impact Investing
On Feb. 15, 2017, in New York, "The Economist" is bringing together leading financiers, institutional investors, entrepreneurs and business executives, policymakers and regulators, academics, and philanthropists, to analyze the main opportunities and obstacles to the mainstreaming of purpose-driven finance. There's still time to buy discounted tickets, and NextBillion readers get an extra 15 percent off.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- impact investing
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The Mobile Trap: How Safaricom and Other MNOs Prey on the Poor
Safaricom and others are "using Premium Rate Services to fleece consumers," writes Wayan Vota. "The development community prides itself on being advocates for the poor, and digital development practitioners have the added responsibility to advocate for cyber-marginalized citizens. We should not be blindly driving women to own and use mobile phones, when those devices will only impoverish them further."
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- Technology
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A Solution to the Drama of Digital Finance
There are advantages to being a digital financial services provider, but also risks surrounding questions such as: Which business model should I choose? Should I develop my own digital platform or leverage someone else’s? Do I want to deploy my own network of agents? Will I partner with an MNO? That's why UNCDF’s MicroLead program, PHB Development and The MasterCard Foundation are working together to provide toolkits for FSPs.
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- Technology
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Turning Cassava into Gold: Small Producer Taps into Big Demand in Kenya
The founder and managing director of Mhogo Foods in Kenya has found a niche processing cassava into gluten-free flour, starch and animal feed, and sees a bright future for Kenyan cassava farmers and processors like herself. “Cassava is a drought-resistant crop not very hard to care for in the farm," especially when compared to maize, she said. "That is why I process it.”
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- Agriculture
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Social Business Gets Trumped: Is it Time for the Sector to Get Political?
Like most of us, Jonathan Lewis has strong opinions about the election of Donald Trump. In this podcast interview, the serial social entrepreneur and passionate advocate for the sector shares his frank views of the incoming administration, and why Trump's victory shows that social business has been "smug and remiss" in underplaying the impact of government. "The simple fact of the matter is: Government is scale," he says – so social business can no longer afford to be apolitical.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- public policy
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Unlocking Human Potential: How Psychometric Scoring Can Turbocharge Financial Inclusion
EFL Global aims to enable lending to underserved borrowers around the world. The firm pioneered psychometric credit scoring, a screening tool designed to identify traits key to successful entrepreneurship. In this email Q&A with NextBillion Senior Editor James Militzer, Jared Miller, CEO of EFL Global, talks about efforts by his company and others to “turbocharge” financial inclusion.
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- Uncategorized
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Don’t Just Color It Pink and Call It Financial Inclusion for Women
To close the financial inclusion gender gap, providers will have to do more than simply making cosmetic changes to their existing services. To that end, more than 100 financial regulators and policymakers recently gathered in Fiji and adopted a 10-point proposal focused on creating regulatory and operational environments conducive to bringing financial products and services to women – a possible game-changer for women’s financial inclusion.
- Categories
- Finance, Uncategorized
