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Airbnb is Just the Beginning: The Sharing Economy Comes to Emerging Markets
The "sharing economy" is a buzzworthy new industry with platform provider revenues of $18.6 billion – a number that’s predicted to double by 2022 – and a user base that's expected to increase to 86.5 million by 2021. But what is its potential impact on emerging markets? NextBillion spoke with Airbnb's Shawn Sullivan and sharing economy expert April Rinne about how the nascent industry could impact low-income communities – including through an intriguing variation on Airbnb's home-sharing model.
- Categories
- Technology
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Building BoP Ecosystems: Register for the 2018 BoP Global Network Summit, April 18 – 20, New Delhi, India
Ecosystem development in BoP business has evolved from a buzzword to an emerging reality, with multiple new partnerships and platforms. The 3rd BoP Global Network Summit aims to catalyze and support such partnerships, convening 200 participants from 15+ countries on April 18 – 20 in New Delhi, India. Register soon: Early bird pricing ends Feb. 28. And subscribe to NextBillion Notes for a chance to win one of two free tickets we'll be raffling off to subscribers in the coming weeks.
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- Uncategorized
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Finance Responds to Climate Change: How ‘Recovery Lending’ Can Help Victims of Weather-Related Disasters
Natural disasters leave U.S. communities reeling – but those impacted generally have an insurance safety net. When climate-related catastrophes strike poorer populations, it is almost impossible to recover fully. In fact, every year natural disasters force 26 million people further into poverty. Stewart McCulloch of VisionFund International details a novel disaster insurance program that leverages big data climate models to support nearly 700,000 families with "recovery lending."
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
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Closing the Gap: Identifying Key Challenges for the Missing Middle SMEs in Francophone West Africa
Many small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries fall into the “missing middle”: They're too big for microfinance and too small or risky for traditional finance. To better understand this sector and how to support it, the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) commissioned studies on the entrepreneurial ecosystems of Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Togo. WDI's Ekta Jhaveri discusses the research with Julia Kho, knowledge manager at TripleJump, an investment management and advisory services firm that manages DGGF’s Investment Funds Local SMEs effort.
- Categories
- Investing
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Why Impact Investing is the Next Big Move for Grameen America
David Gough of Grameen America says philanthropy will always be at the heart of the organization's funding, but the nonprofit saw impact investing as an untapped opportunity to fight gender inequity. In celebrating its 10-year anniversary of supporting female entrepreneurship and financial inclusion in the U.S., the group established its first Social Business Fund. The impact investing vehicle is allowing Grameen America supporters to directly invest in the success of more than 100,000 entrepreneurs and receive a financial return in exchange, writes Gough.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Why the Next Steve Jobs Could Be From Pakistan
Author and professor Elmira Bayrasli sees a big shift taking place among entrepreneurs in developing markets: They're seeking opportunities in their home countries, instead of fleeing to Western nations. In this video dialogue with WDI's Amy Gillett, Bayrasli, who wrote the book “From the Other Side of the World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places,” offers several other insights on what startup founders are really looking for and what they need to achieve it.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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The End of a Debate? India Highlights the Dominance of For-Profit Capital in Impact Investing
Can impact investing be as commercially viable as mainstream investing – or does it work better as a nonprofit model, or as a less-profitable niche in the broader investing space? This question remains widely debated, even as more empirical evidence has demonstrated the commercial success of impact investments. Disha Gandhi of Aavishkaar asserts that the long-running global debate over for-profit vs. nonprofit models in impact investing may be winding down, and India is a key case in point.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Coming of Age: Why Consolidation in the Impact Investing Industry is a Great Thing
With over $114 billion deployed into impact investments in 2017 and the total U.S. market at well above $8 trillion, the sector has gone decisively mainstream. And when that happens, industry consolidation is not far behind. In light of a recent wave of eyebrow-raising mergers and acquisitions, Stephanie Cohn Rupp at Tiedemann Wealth Management – which recently completed a merger of its own – says this trend should spark more excitement than concern.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing
