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What is Lost in a Digital Financial World — And How to Get it Back
As we work to extend financial services to the two billion financially excluded people around the world, we must rely on digital financial services. But vital as they are to financial inclusion, in the transformation to digital interfaces, valuable personal connections between financial service providers and customers are lost. Elisabeth Rhyne explores what exactly is lost, and how that loss can be mitigated or replaced.
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- Uncategorized
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‘Her Hands Trembled’ When She Borrowed Her First $64; Now She’s Giving Advice to BRAC
BRAC, which has been gradually integrating mobile money into its microfinance operations since 2011, has introduced a number of new initiatives, including investing heavily in client protection, customer service and financial education, and developing mobile money use cases. Here, as part of FI2020 Week's spotlight on keeping clients first in a digital world, a long-time client gives her perspective on this evolution.
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- Uncategorized
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Financial Inclusion Week Starts Today – Here’s How You Can Participate
It's Financial Inclusion Week 2016 – a research and advocacy project that brings together nearly 40 organizations and stakeholders around the world to host events and share insights on advancing financial inclusion. This year, the conversations will focus on keeping clients first in a digital world, a theme which aims to bring clients to the forefront of the fintech discussion.
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- Uncategorized
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Why the World’s Smallholder Farmers are Going Hungry
Many of the world’s households most affected by hunger are smallholder farmers who are, ironically, critical to feeding the world as its population grows. These small farmers need to become more productive and less poor, which is possible only if they have the building block critical to growing businesses of every kind: better access to finance.
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- Agriculture
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Weekly Roundup: $5 Beats Free, SunFunder Rises, and Asia’s Investors Love Impact
Why it's not crazy for a global health organization to refuse free vaccines, where the world's most socially conscious investors live, which major funder might be planning to alter some old investment restrictions, and what's needed to support the Sustainable Development Goals. That and more; it's all here in our Weekly Roundup.
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- Health Care
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Digital Technology is Key to Solving ‘Wicked Problems’ in Agriculture
There's a great need for partnerships between the private sector and government – as well as broader, cross-sectoral partnerships inclusive of civil society, NGOs, farmer organizations, research institutes and academia – in order to collaboratively solve "wicked" problems with information and communication technologies for agriculture.
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- Agriculture
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Rethinking the ‘Youth Are Not Interested in Agriculture’ Narrative
Agriculture is the backbone of many sub-Saharan countries and, anecdotal evidence aside, it's not necessarily true that youth are not interested in it. But the sector won't reach its huge potential, and "agripreneurs" won't get the support they need, until certain government and private sector structures and processes are transformed.
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- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Leveraging Technology for Good: An Interview With June Sugiyama, Director of the Vodafone Americas Foundation
With its parent corporation ranked as one of the top telecom companies in the world, Vodafone Americas Foundation's focus is a natural fit: "We support projects that use technology for social impact," says June Sugiyama, the foundation's director. In this Q&A, recorded at the SOCAP16 conference, she discusses the foundation's multifaceted work.
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- Technology
