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Your Official SOCAP18 Conference Preview – And Last Chance Discount
SOCAP, one of the premier events centered on mobilizing capital for impactful social and environmental change, is right around the corner. Set for Oct. 23-26, 2018 in San Francisco, SOCAP18 is expected to draw thousands of participants and will feature over 500 speakers from the professional impact sphere. In a preview of what's on tap, SOCAP CEO Lindsay Smalling has details on the discussions, a reconfigured format and a special last chance discount for NextBillion readers. And NextBillion will be giving away a FREE ticket to the event to one lucky reader of our weekly e-newsletter next week - subscribe by 12:00 pm EDT Wednesday, Sept. 19 for your chance to win!
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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A C-Section Should Not Be a Privilege: Expanding Access to Life-Saving Maternal Care
For every 100,000 live births, 814 women die in Nigeria, 725 die in Liberia, and 443 die in Zimbabwe. (For comparison, the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world at 26.4). One major reason is limited access to C-sections – a persistent problem in low-resource settings, where health systems often lack the people, supplies and infrastructure to perform the procedure safely. Erin Barringer and Erastus Maina at Safe Surgery 2020 discuss this challenge, and how their partnership is successfully addressing it in remote parts of Ethiopia and Tanzania.
- Categories
- Health Care
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From Financial Inclusion to Employment: Four Ways Superplatforms Will Shape Africa’s Future
Perhaps surprisingly, young people in sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income countries haven't embraced digital payments to the extent of their older peers. But that may be changing as "superplatforms" like Alibaba and Facebook – which can leverage their data and tech capabilities over multiple sectors – emerge in the region. David Porteous and Amolo Ng’weno of BFA and Olga Morawcynski of Mastercard Foundation discuss four ways these tech platforms will shape youth employment, financial inclusion, digital identity and other fields.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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What’s the Best Way to Teach Entrepreneurship? Assessing the Impact of Different Business Training Approaches
With countless low-income people running small-scale enterprises, many see entrepreneurship as a viable pathway out of poverty. But what are the most effective methods for teaching business skills to these entrepreneurs? MIT D-Lab's Libby McDonald disseminates research from D-Lab's Practical Impact Alliance working group, highlighting key approaches for transferring entrepreneurial knowledge to BoP business owners, and discussing skillsets that can serve as the primary building blocks for a business-training curriculum.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Fewer Poor People are Saving: What Does That Mean for Microfinance and Mobile Money?
As the world grows richer and the financial inclusion movement steams ahead, savings rates are abysmally low across the globe. In fact, over half of all adults on the planet saved nothing in the last year – neither bank deposits nor cash stuffed in drawers. In the third of a four-part series analyzing the much-discussed 2017 Global Findex, Scott Graham of FINCA International explores the savings habits of individuals worldwide – particularly in the developing world – and the implications for financial services providers.
- Categories
- Finance
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Mission Impossible? How Large Asset Managers Can Avoid ‘Mission Drift’
In recent years, an increasing number of large asset managers have entered the impact investing arena. But many of them still focus mainly on financial returns, failing to develop a truly “impact first” approach. Florian Kemmerich of Bamboo Capital explores three ways large asset managers can deliver legitimate impact, while reducing the risk of possible mission drift.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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India’s Impact Capital Vacuum – And What to Do About It
Impact investments in India grew by double digits between 2010 and 2016, and are expected to reach US $8 billion by 2025. But the on-the-ground reality is not so rosy. Investors are flocking to financial services and larger-scale companies, while early-stage enterprises and impact sectors such as agriculture, health care and clean energy face a funding gap. While there is no secret sauce for changing this dynamic, Gagandeep Bakshi and Sameer Gaud at Intellecap offer five guiding principles to help social enterprises with successful fundraising.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Collaboration for Impact: The 2018 Edition of SEEP’s Annual Conference
The SEEP Network's flagship event is less than a month away. The theme of this year's conference, "Collaboration for Impact," will highlight the importance of multi-sector changemaking and empower attendees with the insights needed to take their impact to the next level. The event will feature informative breakout sessions and prominent contributing orgs like Grameen Foundation, USAID and BRAC. Read more in this preview from SEEP program associate Mashal Amjad, including information on how you could win a free ticket from NextBillion.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
