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Lessons Learned Building Locally-Sourced Wheelchairs
JJD Innovations is empowering local tradesmen like welders to build wheelchairs that are customized to the end-user, while also creating a sustainable supply. The firm had to reiterate the engineering multiple times based on the availability of local materials, and reiterate again when the material was available but the building skills were hard to find.
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- Health Care
- Tags
- product design, scale
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Five Reasons NGOs and Social Enterprises are Going Cashless
With over 250 services deployed in 89 countries worldwide, mobile money has enjoyed explosive growth among consumers in emerging markets. But digital payments are also transforming the work of development-focused organizations, many of which are shifting their bulk payment systems from cash to digital. This post explores the far-reaching organizational and financial benefits of this approach.
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- Uncategorized
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NexThought Monday – What Stands Between Women and Full Financial Inclusion?
Opening a bank account – as more than 200 million people have done since India's financial inclusion push – is an important first step toward empowerment. But simply having an account is not enough; many women in India own bank accounts but lack full freedom to use them.
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- Uncategorized
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The Hard Facts on ‘Soft Data’: Determining risk for loan applicants without credit scores is more than a numbers game
Research has shown that judging creditworthiness based on a single number can shortchange lenders as well as borrowers, and that a more comprehensive picture based on “soft information” as well as numbers can serve as a firmer basis for judging risk of default. This is good news for small borrowers – and it represents a promising new direction for those seeking to lend to them.
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- Uncategorized
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Microfinance Clients Make Their Voices Heard: New research reveals their thoughts on how they’re treated by providers
The Smart Campaign has released the results from its Client Voices project, a four-country research investigation that directly asked clients about their experiences with financial providers and their thoughts on what constitutes good and bad treatment. The project features research from Georgia, Peru, Benin and Pakistan, based on face-to-face conversations with thousands of lower-income microfinance clients.
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- Uncategorized
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Necessity Breeds Lifesaving Invention – and a Hub to Launch More Innovation
Dr. Dayo Olakulehin, a young doctor in Lagos, Nigeria, fell asleep while manually ventilating a 5-year-old boy with breathing difficulties. That led him to invent D-Box, a cheap, portable, rechargeable ventilator – and then he helped develop a company to launch the device and other medical innovations in Africa.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Moving Beyond Charity: How CURE is changing how low-income patients perceive health care
CURE, the charity-based group of hospitals perhaps best known for its innovative treatment of hydrocephalus, might soon also be recognized for its seamless shift to a more sustainable model. That’s the goal of Derek Johnson, who has served since June as CURE’s director for development and sustainability, after many years as the executive director of CURE Uganda. He discussed the organization's innovations and its efforts to move beyond a strictly charity-based model in a recent interview with NextBillion.
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- Health Care
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Want to Change the World? Support Poor Farmers
Achieving food security and improved nutrition worldwide is one of the biggest of the Sustainable Development Goals. But to achieve these goals, according to BRAC International, two things are crucial: women must have decision-making roles in both the public and private sector, and organizations working on providing anti-poverty solutions must have business-like models.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education
