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Accelerating Systems Change: An Innovative Accelerator Shows How Funders Can Amplify Social Enterprises’ Impact by Transforming Their Funding Model
There’s a growing belief that lasting solutions to today's complex challenges will require fundamental changes to the systems that underlie these issues. According to Celia Sanchez-Valladares Barahona, Stella Printezi and Lucía Tornero at Ashoka, social entrepreneurs are well-placed to accelerate systems change, but the funding models they rely on may end up prolonging the issues they're trying to solve. They explain how funders can transform these increasingly outdated models to better support long-term, systemic change, as illustrated by an accelerator co-created by Ashoka and IKEA Social Entrepreneurship.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Applying a Gender Lens to Agribusiness: A Pathway to Economic Empowerment for Women
Women farmers in emerging markets face many gender-specific challenges when they attempt to participate equally in agricultural supply chains, employment opportunities and distribution networks. As Cait Nordehn and Bwile Musonda at TechnoServe explain, agribusinesses are well-positioned to address these challenges — if these firms can improve the gender inclusivity of their sourcing, operations and distribution. They discuss TechnoServe’s experiences deploying its Gender-Responsive Diagnostic tool with agribusinesses to identify opportunities for greater gender inclusion.
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- Agriculture
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A DIY Approach to M&E: Four Tips to Overcome the Complexities of Monitoring and Evaluation
Most social enterprises and non-profits recognize that high-quality data and evidence can help them improve performance, attract more funding, and understand — and eventually increase — their impact. Yet as Mia Jeong and Linh Vo at IDinsight point out, these organizations often face financial constraints in creating and sustaining effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems. They share some simple but effective ways to create these systems on a limited budget, by taking a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach to monitoring and evaluation.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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The New Face of Emerging Market Outsourcing: Why African Talent is Primed to Reshape Global Business Processes
The global labor market has been transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic’s normalization of remote work and the resulting “great resignation,” in which high-skilled employees in developed markets have left stagnant positions in favor of more flexible, engaging jobs. As Orinola Gbadebo-Smith at Hugo Technologies explains, this has resulted in a talent shortage in sectors like business services and information technology, leading corporations to outsource increasingly more complex tasks to developing countries where workers have acquired the skills to perform them. He explores why young workers in Africa are particularly well-placed to capitalize on this shift.
- Categories
- Technology
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A Blueprint for Closing the SDG Financing Gap: How to Raise $290 Billion in 12 Months to Tackle the World’s Biggest Problems
As of 2020, the annual SDG financing gap for developing countries stood at $4.2 trillion — up from $2.5 trillion pre-pandemic. And according to Chris Clubb at Convergence Blended Finance, though private capital is crucial to closing this gap, the $240 billion in annual public development finance only mobilizes around $44 billion in private investment, which covers just 1% of these countries' climate and SDG investment needs. He explores the core elements of Convergence's Action Plan for Climate and SDG Investment Mobilization, which shows how a small amount of public and philanthropic funding can catalyze private investment to more than double total climate and SDG financing in developing economies.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
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Forget about Mobile Money, Invest in Insurtech Instead: The Untapped Triple Bottom Line Opportunity in Nigeria
Nigeria has one of the lowest insurance penetration rates in the world, at just 0.5%. But as Brian Yu at Shecluded explains, this low uptake means the industry is poised for disruption and growth. He explores how insurtech innovators are addressing the key problems plaguing the sector — namely, a lack of accessibility, affordability and customer trust — and calls for funders to look past their traditional focus on mobile money and invest in the insurtech businesses that are transforming the way the industry serves low-income customers.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
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Can Pay-As-You-Go Help Clean Up Clean Cooking?
Since 2015, the global focus on clean cooking has grown substantially, bringing more funding, research and attention from policymakers to the sector. But according to Tash Perros at the University of Liverpool, Iwona Bisaga at Loughborough University and Julia Tomei at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, progress remains slow, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. They examine some of the reasons behind the inertia that is plaguing clean cooking access, and explore whether pay-as-you-go business models could catalyze progress.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Technology
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How U.S. Businesses Can Compete with China in Emerging Markets: Transitioning from a ‘Death Economy’ to a ‘Life Economy’
For decades, American businesses working in emerging markets have prioritized profit maximization regardless of the social and environmental costs — an approach that economist and author John Perkins describes as the "death economy." But as China has supplanted America as the top investor and trading partner in many of these markets, Perkins attributes its success to its embrace of the ideals — if not always the practices — of sustainable development. He explores how China's promotion of a regenerative "life economy" has resonated in developing countries, and how U.S. businesses can respond.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing, Transportation