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Launching India’s Microinsurance Revolution: How the Sector Can Build Upon Growing Customer Awareness Due to COVID-19
Since the start of COVID-19, customers in low- and middle-income countries like India have had an increased understanding of the value of insurance. But as Moin Qazi explains, typical insurance schemes are often unsuited for the unique needs of this population. He explores how microinsurance can better address these needs, and how providers and policymakers can capitalize on low-income customers' growing awareness of insurance's benefits – while navigating the business challenges of serving these communities.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
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Analysis: Can Infrastructure Projects Drive Emerging Markets’ COVID-19 Recoveries?
Many emerging markets are turning towards infrastructure projects to stimulate the economic recovery from the coranvirus pandemic, with a particular focus on green and sustainable developments.
- Categories
- Coronavirus
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COVID Fallout ‘Undermining Nature Conservation Efforts’
Covid-19 is taking a "severe toll" on conservation efforts, with multiple environmental protections being rolled back, according to research.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: Corporate Investors Hold the Key to Fostering Inclusive Entrepreneurship
Alarming headlines about women leaving the workforce during the pandemic abound. A quick Google on the topic will yield results including “How COVID-19 Sent Women’s Workforce Progress Backward”, “Women’s COVID-Fueled Exodus from the Workplace Hurts Us All”, “Why COVID-19 Could Force Millions of Women to Quit Work – and How to Support Them” from American Progress, Time and the Forum, respectively.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Entrepreneurship
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COVID-Era Innovations With Long-Term Impact: How the Pandemic Is Changing Investment in Frontier Markets
Africa's growing middle class, rapid urbanization and leapfrogging innovations have drawn substantial investor interest. But as Kristin Kelly Jangraw of USAID INVEST points out, high transaction costs, small deal sizes and risk (both real and perceived) have kept many investors on the sidelines. Though COVID-19 lockdowns have increased these challenges, she explores how the pandemic has also brought innovations that could have lasting positive effects on the industry and the region – including new tools for virtual due diligence and deal-making.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Investing, Technology
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Analysis: ‘Brazil Is Suffocating’: COVID Surge Creates Severe Oxygen Crisis
Several states report critical stock levels, loans of cylinders and even transfer of patients who require oxygen.
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: Solar Technologies Can Speed up Vaccine Rollout in Africa. Here’s How
There’s hope that some industrialised countries will achieve near-universal vaccination against COVID-19 in the coming months. Yet the effort to vaccinate even the most essential workers in developing countries has only just begun.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Outdated but Not Obsolete: Why USSD Is Still Key to Driving Digital Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa
As of late 2019, mobile internet adoption stood at just 26% across sub-Saharan Africa, and internet access remains expensive and unreliable even for people who can afford a smartphone. In light of that reality, Wole Olayinka of insiderPR argues that digital inclusion efforts should embrace USSD, a communications protocol that connects feature phone users to basic digital services even without internet access. He explores the advantages and downsides of this outdated – but surprisingly flexible – technology.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Technology
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