NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Wise Ethical Investment Seeks Profit

Like motherhood and apple pie, socially responsible investment warms most people’s hearts. But during a two-year cycle trip across Africa, Swiss investment banker Klaus Tischhauser realized the SRI industry was failing in a key challenge-fighting poverty. Ten years on, the grassroots style of social investing he helped pioneer is wooing many wealthy investors The rich are different, and not just because they have more money. Wealthy individuals often have a wider sense of responsibi...

Source

The Wall Street Journal (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Agriculture

Eyes Down for a More Revealing Insight into Economic Development

A group of people had just disrupted a baseball game by running naked across the field. After the disturbance, legendary player Yogi Berra was asked whether they were men or women. He replied: "I don’t know. They had bags over their heads." That story illustrates what is perhaps the biggest issue in development economics today: the inability of many researchers to look in the right place when searching for answers. I have just returned from east Africa, where change is stimulating t...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Global Microcredit Summit 2011 Report

Monday, November 14th 2011 saw the culmination of several years of delicate preparation in a packed conference centre in Valladolid, Spain. The fifth Global Microcredit Summit (held every few years - with regional conferences in between) kicked off in the magnificent Centro Cultural Miguel Delibes, with an opening ceremony full of music, pomp, and a great deal of gratitude - in the particular direction of Sam Daley-Harris, the outgoing Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. Queen ...

Source

Microfinance Focus (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

IFC Stakes 18.9% Equity in ACCION

ACCION International, parent company of Accion Nigeria and a pioneer in global microfinance, has signed an agreement with IFC, a member of the World Bank Group focused exclusively on the private sector, in which IFC will invest approximately $1 million in ACCION’s Chinese affiliate, ACCION Microfinance China (AMC). The investment will enable ACCION to strengthen the operations of AMC, which it launched in December 2009 in Chifeng Prefecture, Inner Mongolia, to deliver financial serv...

Source

Vanguard (link opens in a new window)

Region

Asia Pacific

Chutes, Ladders, and Safety Nets: How Microinsurance Helps African Development

James Abuh-Prah had owned a used electronics shop in a small market in Accra for 17 years before a flood took everything. It was late one night in October, and the torrential rains hadn’t stopped for hours. "By 5 a.m. the water was up to my chest," he says. He had taken out a $2,400 loan from his bank, Opportunity International, to use as capital to buy used televisions, stereos, and other electronics. Now, everything was destroyed. It’s like a game of Chutes and Ladders,"...

Source

GOOD (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Ecuador Expanding Access to Microcredit for Low-Income Women

Ecuador will expand access to microcredit, particularly among low-income women, through a $50 million loan approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) aimed at increasing employment opportunities and reducing poverty. The National Program for Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Solidarity (PNFPEES) will be the executing agency for the program, which will contribute to its strategy for fostering economic inclusion with particular emphasis on financing for women entrepreneur...

Source

Hispanically Speaking News (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Microfinance Industry Going All Out to Regain Lost Glory with Women Power

HYDERABAD/MUMBAI: Beleaguered microfinance industry is turning to women power to lift it out of the depths. The fairer sex is increasingly occupying the rank and file of recovery agents of lenders to the poor as the industry attempts to restore its past glory after charges of molestation and browbeating made it an unwanted child. "We will push the MFIs to have more women on rolls once the industry, currently in fire...

Source

The Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Africa Rising

THE shops are stacked six feet high with goods, the streets outside are jammed with customers and salespeople are sweating profusely under the onslaught. But this is not a high street during the Christmas-shopping season in the rich world. It is the Onitsha market in southern Nigeria, every day of the year. Many call it the world’s biggest. Up to 3m people go there daily to buy rice and soap, computers and construction equipment. It is a hub for traders from the Gulf of Guinea, a region b...

Source

The Economist (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa