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Protecting Clients in a Crisis: Five Lessons BRAC Learned While Re-Engineering its Microlending Strategy During COVID-19
COVID-19 has had a harsh impact on small businesses and the people who depend on them – and this impact has also affected their lending institutions. As Sahed Shams Azad at BRAC Microfinance explains, pandemic-related business closures have prevented many borrowers from making repayments, disrupting their lives – and BRAC Microfinance's nearly billion-dollar monthly lending cycle. He explores the dramatic adjustments the organization has made to its operations in response to this crisis, and how it has protected its clients' best interests throughout the process.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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Analysis: Covid-19 Crushes Career Dreams of Young Latin Americans
Millions of students in Colombia and across Latin America, have been forced to leave higher education due to the economic fallout of Covid-19, experts say.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Education
- Region
- Latin America
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Ghana to Start Producing Own COVID-19 Vaccines in January 2024
Ghana will start producing its own COVID-19 vaccines in January 2024, President Nana Akufo-Addo said on Wednesday in his State of the Nation Address in parliament.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Pfizer to Supply UNICEF up to 4 Million Treatment Courses of Novel COVID-19 Oral Treatment for Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Pfizer Inc. announced today an agreement with UNICEF to supply up to 4 million treatment courses of its COVID-19 oral treatment.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How COVID-19 Is Reversing Energy Access in the Global South
Since the start of the pandemic, 100 million people have lost access to electricity. The off-grid renewable energy sector needs urgent support if progress towards the UN’s seventh Sustainable Development Goal, to ensure energy access for all, is to be maintained.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Energy
- Region
- Global
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Using Blended Finance to Navigate the Pandemic: How an Innovative Funding Vehicle is Helping SMEs Survive COVID-19 and Advance the SDGs
Emerging economies' progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is behind schedule, and COVID-19 has set their efforts back even further. Margi Goelz at Georgetown University and Bridget Bradley at Tetra Tech discuss the value of blended finance in closing these countries' estimated $2.5 trillion annual SDG funding gap. They explore how an innovative blended finance facility has helped a Kenya-based energy company navigate the pandemic and contribute to the SDGs, and how this approach can support other small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Energy, Finance
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Getting Children Back to School: Lessons Learned from Uganda as it Ends the World’s Longest COVID-19 Shutdown
Uganda recently reopened schools after the world’s longest COVID-19 shutdown. Due to limited access to online education, most young people had not been learning for nearly two years – and officials estimate that roughly a third won't ever return to school. Atul Tandon and Andrew McCusker at Opportunity International explore the impact of pandemic closures on low-cost private schools in the country, discuss the particular risks of school closures for girls, and share three key lessons that can help schools successfully reopen and bring students back to the classroom.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Education
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Pandemic Sends 4.7 Million More People Into Extreme Poverty in South East Asia – Asian Development Bank
The pandemic added 4.7 million more people to Southeast Asia's most extreme poor in 2021, reversing gains made in fighting poverty, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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