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Data That Does the Work: What Acumen Has Learned About Enterprise Feedback Loops
When it comes to the litany of obstacles keeping enterprises from growing, capital – or lack of it – tends to get the most attention. But access to data from customers, operations and staff may be a close second. The key to addressing data deserts is helping companies build a data-informed culture from the start, writes Chris Bullard, who leads post-investment and value creation strategy for Acumen. Bullard draws lessons from the impact investor’s Lean Data initiative.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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NextBillion’s Reader Survey: Results Coming Soon!
As part of our ongoing efforts to better serve our readers, NextBillion put together a brief (15 question) survey. The questions were aimed at helping us determine the topics and types of content that interest our audience the most – while also helping us get to know our readers a bit better. As an incentive, all participants were entered into a raffle for one of three US $50 Amazon, Flipkart or Jumia gift cards. As of Feb. 28, the survey is closed - NextBillion will share the results, and announce the winners of the three gift cards, in the coming days.
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- Uncategorized
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Boycott Myanmar: An Open Letter to the Microfinance Community
In response to global events, microfinance has quickly ramped up its focus on refugees. But when those refugees are the Rohingya – the Muslim minority being expelled from Myanmar (and the world’s latest victims of genocide) – this new focus raises some difficult questions, says Daniel Rozas. Why isn’t anyone in the sector talking about the unspeakable atrocities being conducted and condoned in one of the fastest-growing microfinance markets in the world? “There is no way around it: When we work in Myanmar, we are complicit in ethnic cleansing,” Rozas says, in a bold call for a country-wide boycott.
- Categories
- Finance
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Electrifying Transportation: Can This Innovative Financing Model Make Electric Buses a Global Reality?
Electrifying transportation at scale is critical to fighting climate change and urban pollution. And with their affordable battery costs and lower fuel and maintenance expenses, transit buses present an excellent business case for electrification. So what is preventing the rapid deployment of electric buses worldwide? Clean Energy Works founder Holmes Hummel discusses the main barrier to adoption – and an innovative financing solution that could turn things around.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing, Transportation
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Do Payday Loans Deserve Their Bad Reputation? Ask the People Who Know Best – the Borrowers
Payday loans have earned a bad reputation as high-interest money traps that leave low-income borrowers stuck in a cycle of debt. But despite all the criticism and bad press, these loans remain very popular among low-income borrowers, with an estimated 15,766 payday loan stores throughout the U.S. – slightly more than the country's 14,350 McDonalds. So are payday loans really that bad – and are borrowers actually being victimized? LendEDU conducted a survey of payday loan customers, and Mike Brown unpacks the results – many of which may surprise you.
- Categories
- Finance
- Tags
- financial health, lending
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The Donor-Funded Dilemma: What’s Stopping Emerging Countries from Developing Private Markets for Contraceptives?
In sub-Saharan Africa, the private sector provides family planning solutions to almost 40 percent of women. But that isn’t the case in Malawi, a country that’s long been dominated by donor-funded commodities. Erika Beidelman and Andrea Bare at the William Davidson Institute explore Malawi's family planning landscape, highlighting five factors that may be limiting the private sector’s involvement – issues that may apply to other countries with histories of donor-funded healthcare.
- Categories
- Health Care
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On the Ground at European Microfinance Week: Discussing Technology’s Threat and Promise – and Financial Services for Refugees
There were two topics that dominated debate at last week’s European Microfinance Week (EMW) conference: the threats and opportunities brought about by the fintech revolution in inclusive finance, and the issue of financial inclusion for refugees and internally displaced persons. The discussion of these issues ranged from hopeful to surprisingly cautionary – Sam Mendelson at the European Microfinance Platform shares some highlights.
- Categories
- Finance
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Four Ways to Support Vulnerable Youth: Key Takeaways from a Six-Year Livelihood Program
The world’s current generation of 1.8 billion young people is the largest in history. But harnessing this demographic dividend has proven difficult, as youth unemployment rates have remained persistently high for the last decade. Save the Children’s recently concluded Youth in Action program was designed to improve the socioeconomic status of 40,000 out-of-school youth in rural Africa. To find out how well it worked, the organization embedded 32 studies into the program. It recently shared the results – and Nikhit D’Sa discusses four lessons from the findings.
- Categories
- Education
