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Weekly Roundup: Big Deals, Big Reports and the Bono Bump
Bamboo Finance and Accion Investments in Microfinance, SPC this announced what they called a “landmark” transaction for the impact investment industry. And based on what I’ve read this week, it’s hard not to see it any other way. Private equity firm Bamboo Finance will take a controlling stake in Accion’s for-profit equity fund, which for nearly 10 years has provided capital to microfinance institutions.
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- Agriculture
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Entrepreneurial Solutions to Poverty: As we wrap up Global Entrepreneurship Week, let’s salute entrepreneurs in frontier markets
As we celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week across 130 countries, I want to salute entrepreneurs in frontier markets who take the biggest risks and face the longest odds—yet still find ways of growing firms that build prosperity for the world’s poor. With few assets other than passion and ingenuity, successful emerging market entrepreneurs envision new business ideas and then implement them.
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- Uncategorized
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The Poor Measurement of Poverty: The Chilean Case
When the Chilean government announced a decrease in poverty and extreme poverty rates earlier this year – from 15.1 percent to 14.4 percent and from 3.7 percent to 2.8 percent, respectively the response was incredulity. Chile is seen not only as a successful country for poverty reduction, but also as serious and honest in statistics, and the measurements were, until this episode, thought to be reliable. Nevertheless, the discussion lifted the veil on what was being measured.
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- Impact Assessment
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salaUno Receives Support From the IBD to Fight Blindness in Mexico
The Mexican social enterprise salaUno will benefit from a technical cooperation of $250,000 from the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD) to strengthen the capacity of their business model and start an expansion pilot in the country.
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- Health Care
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The Promise of Measuring Shared Value: A New FSG Report reveals how companies can use measurement to unlock value
In a new report, “Measuring Shared Value,” co-authored by Michael E. Porter and FSG, we illuminate how companies can use measurement to unlock additional value for their business and society. An outgrowth “Creating Shared Value” by Porter and Mark Kramer in Harvard Business Review, this report tackles the key shared value challenge we hear from companies all over the world – how to measure and improve shared value approaches.
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- Impact Assessment
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Inside Microinsurance: Why Insuring Female Micro-entrepreneurs has a Ripple Effect
Through MiCRO, a reinsurance company formed in March 2011 by Mercy Corps and Fonkoze with SwissRe, female microentrepreneurs will receive an insurance payout triggered by hurricanes Isaac and Sandy high winds and heavy rains to replace goods and repair damaged businesses. The product can be tailored to the needs of whatever client organization we’re working with and the people they serve.
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- Uncategorized
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Portrait of our Times: Women, Technology, and Inclusivity in the City
We have made great strides in data-driven urban planning, but as we imagine and build our way to smarter futures, we must remember that many still live “off the grid” and can easily fall prey to human trafficking. Thus, we must be imaginative and proactive in engaging with those who are not represented in data we have.
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- Technology
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LINKing Smallholders : A guide on inclusive business models
The Linking Farmers to Markets programme is one of the six thematic areas of the Decision and Policy Analysis (DAPA) research programme at the International Center of Tropical Agriculture’s (CIAT). Since 2007 it has conducted action research on inclusive business models, which has been distilled in a participatory guide to Business Models that link smallholders to markets. The LINK Methodology aims to foster inclusive trading relationships between farmer organisations and formal markets.
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- Agriculture
