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Blog Post
Imagine building a business from the ground up – only to see it literally washed away with every drought and flood due to the effects of climate change. These weather-related cycles, which disproportionately impact women, keep millions in poverty and threaten millions more. Nicole Mills with The BOMA Project and Alex Russell with the Feed the Future Innovation Lab detail a new project pairing poverty graduation programs with livestock insurance – and discuss the randomized control trial designed to see if it actually works.
Climate-Proofing Poverty Graduation Programs: A New Study Explores SolutionsNews
A senior government official told BloombergQuint the proposals pertained to the banks expanding their operations and opening new branches in India. The government has conveyed to the Reserve Bank of India it has no objection over the same, the official said.
Four Asian Banks Get Clearance To Open Branches in IndiaNews
"Village Enterprise provides rural Africans living in extreme poverty with the tools and resources they need to start sustainable businesses and savings groups," said Village Enterprise CEO Dianne Calvi. "With the profits and savings from their businesses, entrepreneurs can send their children to school, feed their families more nutritious food, and break cycles of poverty that can span generations."
Press release: Village Enterprise Promotes Campaign to End Poverty in Times SquareCalendar Event
SEEP Annual Conference: Collaboration for ImpactBlog Post
Roughly 25 percent of the global population needs glasses, but lacks access. The problem isn't cost: Affordable glasses are readily available in emerging markets. What's lacking are trained eye care specialists. The social startup PlenOptika is tackling that issue with a device called the QuickSee: a binocular-sized autorefractor that non-specialists can use to scan a patient’s eyes and produce an eyeglass prescription within seconds. Paul Scott, director of engineering for ASME, discusses the innovation, and the challenges and rewards of running a social hardware startup.
Up to 2.5 Billion People Need Glasses: Can This Hardware Innovation Deliver?News
In 2015-16, roughly four-in-ten adults across the emerging nations surveyed by Pew said they used social networking sites, and as of 2017, a majority (53%) use social media.
Pew: Social media still growing in emerging markets but stalled elsewhereBlog Post
Despite their good intentions, funders are often the biggest barriers to social enterprises or nonprofits achieving impact. Open Road Alliance, a philanthropic initiative that gives emergency grants to impact-focused organizations, gathered and analyzed five years of data about roadblocks faced by over 100 grantees. Nearly half of the problems the group found were caused by funders. Laurie Michaels describes the three categories of funder-related barriers that account for the most frequent challenges – and offers some surprisingly easy fixes.
The Funder Problem: Good Intentions Aren’t EnoughNews
"There are strong returns and very measurable impact," said Rekha Unnithan, manager of Nuveen's $650 million impact investing portfolio, where emerging markets account for nearly 40% of the overall strategy. "They are recognizing that this is not just a niche area."
Emerging markets next on map for impact investing
