-
The High Cost, for the Poor, of Using a Bank
There have been a lot of reports lately on the growing numbers of people without bank accounts, and on those who have accounts but continue to use alternative financial services such as payday loans. All this has convinced policy makers and many consumer advocates that low- and moderate-income people are victims of “financial exclusion.” They have therefore concentrated on moving these people to banks.The numbers of “unbanked” and “underbanked” people are indeed growing. Seventeen million people nationwide are unbanked, up from ten million in 2002; forty-three million are underbanked.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
-
Africa: The Next Great Growth Story for Visa and MasterCard?
Africa's role in the global economy is visibly changing. It is no longer the world's tip jar, but rather a formidable growth pillar.Kenyan telecom company Safaricom, for instance, is the world leader in mobile payments. More than 17 million of Kenya's 40 million citizens use Safaricom's mobile payment service, M-PESA. In addition, close to 25% of Kenya's Gross National Product flows through the service.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
The Future of Health Care Access
For generations, the model of how people in the developed world access health care services has involved face-to-face encounters between doctors and patients in brick-and-mortar medical facilities. The contours of that model are well known: A patient arrives in a clinic, registers her insurance at the front desk, and waits. Then a nurse or an aide ushers her into a sterile room, takes her vital signs, and hands her a paper gown. Some minutes later, a doctor in a white coat enters the room, asks her questions for 10 minutes or so, and conducts a brief physical examination. The doctor issues a diagnosis, writes a prescription, and sends the patient off to make a copayment. Afterward, the patient will drive to a local pharmacy to purchase medication. She is one of 40 patients whom the doctor will see that day.
- Categories
- Health Care
-
Building public-private partnerships for better access to health products
Improving health outcomes for the most vulnerable people requires global funding and collaboration – but neither will have an impact without effective systems for delivering health products and care. Strong supply chains, while critical for improving lives, are rarely the focus of programmes that aim to achieve the millennium development goals or end deaths from preventable disease. As World Health Organisation director-general Dr. Margaret Chan has said, "All the donated drugs in the world won't do any good without an infrastructure for their delivery."
- Categories
- Health Care
-
Social entrepreneurship: More complex than ‘start a business, save the world’
Gauging the impact of a social entrepreneurship is not a hard science, but there are clear signs of when such an effort is on the right track.The highest level of impact can be based on whether the entrepreneur changed a system, said Simon Stumpf, regional representative of Ashoka East Africa. A small operation in organic fertilizer or microhydro might not look as efficient as it could be, but an entrepreneur may have worked to get power purchase agreements so others can sell power to grid, for example.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
-
Pakistan polio outbreak puts global eradication at risk
A Taliban ban on vaccination is exacerbating a serious polio outbreak in Pakistan, threatening to derail dramatic progress made this year towards wiping out the disease worldwide, health officials say.Health teams in Pakistan have been attacked repeatedly since the Taliban denounced vaccines as a Western plot to sterilize Muslims and imposed bans on inoculation in June 2012.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- public health
-
Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority Launches Micro-insurance
The Financial Services Authority (OJK) hopes a newly launched blueprint will support the marketing and implementation of micro-insurance products across Indonesia by 2016.According to OJK commissioner overseeing non-banking financial industry Firdaus Djaelani, it is expected that the blueprint will help expand the micro-insurance segment in the domestic market.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
-
Rwanda: ‘Ensuring Universal Access to Financial Services Key Priority’
Increasing access to financial services is one of the Government's priorities as Rwanda looks to ensure a self-reliant populace, John Rwangombwa, the central bank governor, has said."Rwanda's vision is to ensure financial inclusion, especially for the rural masses. In fact, we have made significant progress towards this target. So far, we have been able to double formal financial inclusion from 21 per cent of adults in 2008 to 42 per cent as at the end of last year," Rwangombwa noted.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter, "NextBillion Notes"
Published each Wednesday, our e-newsletter features NextBillion's latest original articles, along with a selection of news, jobs, bizdev opportunities and events from our recent coverage — and regular conference ticket giveaways.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.