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Why Microfinance Should Embrace – Not Resist – A New Brand
We've launched our Most Influential Post of 2016 contest, and every day through Jan. 2 we'll publish another monthly winner included in the competition. This article, the most-viewed post on NextBillion for February, discusses the profound rebranding of microcredit over the past 25 years. There's also a list of the other best-read posts in 2016 and an opportunity to vote for your favorite.
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- Uncategorized
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It’s Time Research Caught Up with Microfinance Realities
As part of our Most Influential Post of 2016 contest, we are re-publishing the most popular articles from each month over the past year. This article by Kathleen Odell, an associate professor of economics and acting associate dean at Dominican University’s Brennan School of Business, was the most-viewed post on NextBillion for January 2016. There's also a list of the other best-read posts in 2016 and an opportunity to vote for your favorite.
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- Uncategorized
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- microfinance, research
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NextBillion’s Most Influential Post of the Year Contest 2016
All our posts discuss important topics. Some, however, are so well-written and well-read that they change and even lead that discussion. Those are the ones that are included in our fifth annual Most Influential Post of the Year Contest. Please read or re-read the posts and then vote for your favorite(s). You may vote up to a dozen times. Voting ends Jan. 2, and we'll name the winner on Jan. 4.
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- Agriculture, Health Care, Investing
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Join ‘The Economist’ in a Discussion About the Future of Impact Investing
On Feb. 15, 2017, in New York, "The Economist" is bringing together leading financiers, institutional investors, entrepreneurs and business executives, policymakers and regulators, academics, and philanthropists, to analyze the main opportunities and obstacles to the mainstreaming of purpose-driven finance. There's still time to buy discounted tickets, and NextBillion readers get an extra 15 percent off.
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- Investing
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- impact investing
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The Mobile Trap: How Safaricom and Other MNOs Prey on the Poor
Safaricom and others are "using Premium Rate Services to fleece consumers," writes Wayan Vota. "The development community prides itself on being advocates for the poor, and digital development practitioners have the added responsibility to advocate for cyber-marginalized citizens. We should not be blindly driving women to own and use mobile phones, when those devices will only impoverish them further."
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- Technology
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A Solution to the Drama of Digital Finance
There are advantages to being a digital financial services provider, but also risks surrounding questions such as: Which business model should I choose? Should I develop my own digital platform or leverage someone else’s? Do I want to deploy my own network of agents? Will I partner with an MNO? That's why UNCDF’s MicroLead program, PHB Development and The MasterCard Foundation are working together to provide toolkits for FSPs.
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- Technology
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Turning Cassava into Gold: Small Producer Taps into Big Demand in Kenya
The founder and managing director of Mhogo Foods in Kenya has found a niche processing cassava into gluten-free flour, starch and animal feed, and sees a bright future for Kenyan cassava farmers and processors like herself. “Cassava is a drought-resistant crop not very hard to care for in the farm," especially when compared to maize, she said. "That is why I process it.”
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- Agriculture
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Social Business Roundup: My Ivory Tower or Yours? Will Cash-strapped Pensions Turn Back to ‘Sin Stocks’?
In the weekly roundup, the CEO of the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) in London says universities shouldn’t teach social entrepreneurship because they aren’t accessible to all; namely, poor people who are often best positioned to help solve social problems in their own neighborhoods. But there's a flaw in his logic. And on Monday, CalPERS, the U.S.'s largest public pension fund, will meet to decide whether to end its 16-year-old policy of divesting from tobacco stocks. Is the tide starting to turn against ESG investments among public pension funds?
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- Education, Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing
