Articles by Manuel Bueno
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Wednesday
July 21
2010Grassroots Business Fund Celebrates Its Second Anniversary
The Grassroots Business Fund (GBF) recently celebrated its second anniversary in a congratulatory mood. It has committed has committed $8M in equity, quasi-equity, debt, grant financing and technical assistance in its 25 investments covering 10 countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia and reaching almost half a million direct beneficiaries.
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Wednesday
July 7
2010G20 SME Finance Challenge
The G20 SME Finance Challenge, jointly organized by Ashoka?s Changemakers community, the G-20 and the Rockefeller Foundation, seeks to find the best models worldwide for public-private partnerships that catalyze finance for SMEs and subsequently give creators of those models a chance to solicit funding. Entries will be accepted until August 25.
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Monday
June 21
2010Climate Change Opportunities and Threats in Microfinance (Part 2 of 2)
By 2100, 145 to 220 million people may fall below the $2-a-day poverty line due to climate change. This will have a negative impact on microfinance institutions. In this second part of a two part series I elaborate on how these organizations can modify their products to encourage borrowers to adapt to the negative effects of climate change.
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Tuesday
June 8
2010Pushing Forward Energy Microfinance: Energy in Common
Energy microfinance only represents 0.5% of the loans issued in microfinance. Energy in Common is a young nonprofit startup that tries to address this gap by focusing exclusively on energy loans. It has partnered with microfinance institutions to support and encourage energy loans while supporting itself from carbon offset donations.
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Thursday
May 13
2010Climate Change Opportunities and Threats in Microfinance (Part 1 of 2)
By 2100, 145 to 220 million people may fall below the $2-a-day poverty line due to climate change. This will have a negative impact on microfinance institutions. In this first part of a two part series I explore how microfinance can palliate the impact of global warming and concentrate on carbon offset markets as a source of economic profits.
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Tuesday
April 27
2010Microinsurance: The Ugly Duckling in Financial Services to the Poor
Being poor means not only surviving with a tight budget, but also managing the unpredictability of an irregular income. Coping with such variability is a fundamental challenge that is often overlooked by financial service providers. This is made worse when poor households suffer external shocks. That’s where microinsurance can play a role.
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Guest Articles
Tuesday
April 13
2010Targeting the Ultra Poor: The BRAC Model
The ultra-poor are the poorest individuals in low income markets and are frequently neglected by private sector initiatives. The BRAC model is a recent attempt to develop an economically sustainable program, specifically targeting this segment to push the poor above the poverty line and teach them how to run their own business.
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Monday
March 29
2010Online Microfinance Loan Guarantees: The Model of United Prosperity
United Prosperity is a young non-profit that turns social investors into social guarantors through an ingenious tweak to the standard P2P microfinance model. This approach increases the capital invested and can build self sufficiency in the local economy by creating formal relationships between MFIs and commercial banks.
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