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Two Sides of the Same Coin: How India’s microfinance and health sectors can collaborate for greater impact
In countries like India, microfinance can be a valuable tool for providing the financing that the poor need to maintain their health. And for microfinance to achieve its goal of providing financial security to the poor, it has to address health security. Sabina Rogers of the Microcredit Summit Campaign describes how the two sectors could collaborate to expand health care access to hundreds of millions.
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- Education, Health Care
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How Abandoned Houses Are Creating a Golden Opportunity: An Interview With Antonio Díaz, Founder and CEO of Provive
Mexico experienced its own housing boom and bust. More than 7 million homes were constructed in the last decade, thanks in large part to government incentives. But the building wave left more than 600,000 abandoned homes, hot spots for drug abuse and vagrancy. Provive, a social impact enterprise that both renovates houses and revitalizes entire communities, is improving property values with an eye toward profit.
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- Uncategorized
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- interviews, lending
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The Missing Link in Financial Inclusion: Addressing India’s financial literacy gap
India is at an inflection point on the road to financial inclusion, writes Radhika Binani of the Dell Foundation. On the one hand, the country has made considerable progress in the last few years in expanding access to financial products. But even among Indians who have accounts, usage is low. The missing link, she says, is financial literacy, and she describes five design principles for delivering it.
- Categories
- Education
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There Is No A-Ha Moment: Social and entrepreneurial ‘innovation’ myths must first fall to build something new
Innovation is not only the purview of creative people; it is not born in a warm shower stall, or even on explorations into nature. These four steps guided us through the founding of Dare to Innovate and inform the program that all of our fellows go through to create their social businesses.
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- Education
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- incubators
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Finding A Responsible Way Forward For Digital Finance: A CGAP global survey looks to shape the roadmap
Between 2011 and 2013, registered mobile money users almost tripled, growing to more than 200 million globally. But growing opportunities in the sector bring new risks for consumers, and new challenges for providers and regulators. That’s why CGAP has launched a global survey to help shed light on the state of practice, and drive discussion around responsible digital finance.
- Categories
- Education
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- digital payments, research
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How to Be an International Dealmaker: Market nudges are building global vaccine markets
Vaccines are effective and relatively inexpensive health interventions but, for a variety of reasons, many potential vaccines are never developed, distributed or tailored to work effectively in the Global South. Recent risk reduction measures, however, show promise toward reducing vaccine prices and increasing access while engaging manufacturers and stimulating innovation in the market.
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- Health Care
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- vaccines
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Failure to Launch: Why Mobile Money Hasn’t Taken off in Nigeria – And How the Sector Can Turn Things Around
In contrast to other African countries, Nigeria’s digital finance sector has yet to take off, with one survey finding that just 0.01 percent of Nigerians have a mobile money account. Critics suggest the lack of progress is due to banks rather than telecoms leading the charge. But research from the Helix Institute of Digital Finance suggests that other factors may be responsible - and points toward some solutions.
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- Education, Finance, Technology
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NexThought Monday – Clean Energy Mini-grids for Rural Customers are Here to Stay: How to ensure power flows for long-term – Going Off Grid (pt 6)
In recent weeks we’ve seen big global development players drum up much-needed attention for renewable energy in Southeast Asia. Despite the headlines and events, for those who look at the statistics, it has never been a secret that Southeast Asia holds massive potential for renewable energy growth, particularly in the form of decentralized solutions.
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- Energy
