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Small Farmers Meet Big Data: How the Data Revolution Could Transform Smallholder Finance
The enormous gap between the supply and demand of formal credit for smallholder farmers has been well documented. Among the varied causes of this mismatch is the extreme lack of information on potential borrowers that’s available to lenders. Two recent data-focused innovations, however, could dramatically reduce these information challenges and the associated lending risks, which could help open up pools of capital for previously underserved populations.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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NexThought Monday – What Uber and Airbnb Can Teach Us About Global Development
The sharing economy isn't built on apps or smartphones. Its foundation is something far less high tech: paper. Specifically, legal papers related to property such as deeds, titles, leases and the institutions that uphold them. But those documents, and the rights that go with them, are far too scarce for the poor. How some countries are transforming their property rights and land tenure systems, and why the development community should take notice.
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- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup: Obama Chases Bush’s Africa Legacy, Kenya’s Diaspora Leadership and Gray Ghost’s $60M Fund
It’s incongruous to many that the son of a Kenyan is widely perceived to have done less to help Africa than a predecessor best known for putting the U.S. in a bad war and a bad light in so many other places around the globe. Could the President’s Malaria Initiative help change those perceptions?
- Categories
- Health Care
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Mapping the Path to Full Financial Inclusion
When attempting to solve a complex development challenge, we often jump from creating ambitious goals to making plans, without first identifying who we need to reach with our goals, where those people reside, and what challenge and opportunities they face. That’s why one of the underappreciated keys to meeting a development goal is to draw a map - and why maps provide the theme for this year's State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report: Mapping Pathways out of Poverty.
- Categories
- Finance
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From Planning to Execution: Using Value Chain Approach to Lending to Smallholder Farmers and Agribusiness
Lack of financial data about agribusinesses and smallholder farmers makes it even more difficult to adopt conventional methods of credit assessment. Most plain vanilla financial products are ill-suited to the cash flow requirements of an agribusiness, which is often cyclical in nature. But where most financial institutions see a challenge, we at Samunnati saw an opportunity in lending to smallholder farmers and agribusinesses.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Big Data isn’t Enough: We Need an ‘All of the Above’ Strategy to Drive Innovation in Financial Inclusion
Researchers love talking about their data and methods as a “toolbox,” and with the rise of big data, they’ve got a fancy new tool. However, the reason for carrying a toolbox is that there are very few projects where just one tool, no matter how powerful, is sufficient to get the job done. It’s necessary to recognize the weaknesses of big data as well as its strengths, and to think about what other types of data are needed to complement it.
- Categories
- Technology
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Evaluation that Creates Value for Participants: A Client-Centric Approach
Too often, the process of collecting data to evaluate impact, regardless of the intent, feels extractive to the research participants. Extractive industries are those that obtain natural resources from the earth without provision for the potential negative consequences of extraction. Similarly, some evaluations extract data from disadvantaged communities without providing any benefit in return. How Root Capital has taken a more client-centric approach.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- research
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Powering Up International Women’s Day – The Skilled Girl Effect
Women are relatively new entrants to the formal workforce in Bangladesh, and most are the first in their families to have a job. As the trend of greater female employment spreads across the country, women are increasingly taking up leadership positions as well, which has tremendous implications for the country’s workforce. BRAC discusses these changes, and its efforts to support them through skills training.
- Categories
- Education
