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Three Steps to Jumpstart Mobile Finance: Step 1 – Researching smallholders’ financial behavior to help them transition to mobile payments
It’s becoming increasingly clear that cash payment schemes are obsolete in the 21st century, says Lee Babcock. And in agriculture, there’s a growing recognition that enabling digital payments to smallholders is a huge opportunity, both for farmers and the mobile finance sector. In this three-part series, Babcock lays out three steps for embedding mobile money into agriculture development at the BoP.
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- Agriculture
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Innovations in Education: What CEI has learned in its first year, and what’s ahead
In its first year, the Center for Education Innovations has documented close to 500 programs serving the poor in more than 135 countries. Next up: Understanding more about what works, why and how.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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What Motivates an Impact Angel?: Clearly Social Angels, the UK’s first impact-focused angel investing group, discusses what these investors are looking for
Why does someone become an impact angel investor – and is this a source of capital your company might tap? Though impact angel investing is still relatively new, the experience of pioneer investors can provide a better idea of what they’re looking for. Clare Jones of ClearlySo discusses lessons learned through Clearly Social Angels, the UK’s first impact-focused angel investing group.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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Leading From the Front: How we helped develop the Truelift Assessment Tool, and why MFIs should use it
There will always be skepticism about the microfinance industry’s initiatives to promote transparency. Nevertheless, Freedom from Hunger CEO Steve Hollingworth says that organizations like his are working to refocus the sector on poor clients’ needs. He describes how Truelift, a global initiative to promote accountability and learning in pro-poor development, advances that goal.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Moving Health Commodities in Africa: Private sector transport for public health systems
Transporting health commodities in Africa is challenging on many fronts, and it makes sense for some ministries of health to utilize private firms to get the job done. VillageReach has researched the possibilities and developed a set of recommendations to help government entities prepare for outsourcing.
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- Environment, Health Care
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NexThought Monday – Financial Inclusion and the Internet of Things: How Smart Machines Can Benefit the Poor
The Internet of Things refers to the use of technology to automate data transfer between objects via the Internet. It’s billed as a disruptive technology of the next decade, with applications that range from home automation to wearable fitness devices. But it also has great potential to benefit the poor, by enabling payment mechanisms that let the underbanked access basic products and services.
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- Energy, Technology, Telecommunications
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Weekly Roundup – 8/2/14: The NextBillion Case Writing Competition is returning for 2015
We’re thrilled to announce the return of the NextBillion Case Writing Competition, sponsored by the Citi Foundation and managed by GlobaLens. The 2015 contest will represent the fifth edition of the competition, which has attracted hundreds of entries from professors and students from dozens of countries around the world.
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- Education
- Tags
- research
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Chocolate at Risk?: Why sustainable finance is crucial to ensuring a steady cocoa supply for the world’s chocolate industry
Smallholder cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire produce 40 percent of the world cocoa supply. Yet the vast majority still live in poverty due to declining productivity, and in the absence of long-term financing opportunities, many have been changing to other crops. Rainforest Alliance’s Helen Roy describes how socially-minded investors are mobilizing capital to help these farmers revive their land.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
