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A Look at How UN Development Funds Are Recalibrating SDG Funding
COVID-19 funding will likely impact the long-term financing prospects of the Sustainable Development Goals, experts say. For now, U.N. development funds are relaxing restrictions so agencies can accommodate the necessary reality of joining COVID-19 with SDG work.
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- Tags
- global development, SDGs
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Viewpoint: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Financial Inclusion
COVID-19 is the force majeure that has swept across continents at lightning speed, leaving in its devastating wake a financial contagion like no other, with the global economy said to have contracted by 12% in Q1 alone and the downturn described as the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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Press Release: ImpactAssets Launches Impact Investing COVID Fund in Response to Activated Investors and Philanthropists
ImpactAssets, a nonprofit impact investment firm that invests in funds and companies that create social and environmental return alongside of financial return, today announced the launch of the ImpactAssets COVID Response Fund, a hybrid of rapid-response charitable giving and flexible impact investing with an initial capacity of more than $1 Billion in investment opportunities.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Investing
- Tags
- impact investing
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Coronavirus Is Triggering Deep Digital Change in African Fintech
In a bid to curb the spread of the virus, the World Health Organisation has been cautioning against the use of hard currency and encouraging the use of digital payments. This move has prompted African governments and regulators to enforce measures aimed at facilitating more cashless transactions.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital finance, fintech
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Where to Invest in Africa in the Face of COVID-19
As Africa heads towards recession, it’s not easy to know where to invest. Akinyi Ochieng and Isaac Kwaku Fokuo, Jr. highlight three areas that are likely to fare better during the downturn
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: COVID-19 Is a Call to Action for Regulators to Boost Financial Inclusion
Mobile money transfer and global remittance firms such as Chipper Cash and WorldRemit are particularly vital for migrants who rely on these services to send money home for essentials such as school fees, medical costs or groceries. As the services are increasingly available through mobile devices, they are a particularly efficient instrument in the push toward financial inclusion and the achievement of several UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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The Informal Economy is Complicating Government Responses to COVID-19: Will the Crisis Push Millions Toward Formality?
As COVID-19 devastates the global economy, many governments have designed support measures to help businesses and workers survive. But as Jill Lagos Shemin and James Dailey point out, this support may be ineffective in lower-income countries, where most small businesses and their employees work in the informal economy, lacking bank accounts and even valid ID. They explore some solutions governments can pursue – and trade-offs they will have to accept.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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Report: Countries, Companies Risk Billions in Race for Coronavirus Vaccine
“The crisis in the world is so big that each of us will have to take maximum risk now to put this disease to a stop,” said Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, which has partnered with the U.S. government on a $1 billion investment to speed development and production of its still-unproven vaccine. “If it fails,” Stoffels told Reuters, “it will be bad.”
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
- Region
- North America
- Tags
- public health, vaccines