NextBillion - A WDI Publication

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• Blog Post
  Microinsurance: The Ugly Duckling in Financial Services to the Poor

  Being poor means not only surviving with a tight budget, but also managing the unpredictability of an irregular income. Coping with such variability is a fundamental challenge that is often overlooked by financial service providers. This is made worse when poor households suffer external shocks. That’s where microinsurance can play a role.

• Blog Post
  Skoll Award Recipients Focus on Ecosystem Services Market

  Having focused much of my research at Oxford on carbon markets and the development of ecosystem services markets, I was thrilled to see the Skoll Foundation?s recent investments in this area at last night?s ceremony for their 2010 Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. Three of the seven recipients were from the field of forest valuation.

• Blog Post
  Funding the Small Fish: Association for Development of Pakistan

  With a proliferation of small projects and business ideas bubbling up in developing countries, a gap is emerging: the lack of a dedicated donor pool willing to angel fund such projects. Enter the Association for Development of Pakistan, an organization that provides grants in amounts less than USD $10,000 to groups in Pakistan.

• Blog Post
  Notes from the Base of the Pyramid(s)

  Try Googling ?Base of the Pyramid? and ?Egypt.? You will learn about the size of the base of the Cheops pyramid, the length of its sides, and that it was built to be as square as possible. Not exactly what one might be looking for in the context of enterprise and development?

• Blog Post
  Keystone Performance Survey: Social Investment 2010

  Last fall, Acumen Fund worked with Keystone Accountability to develop and execute a survey of all of our investments. This was the first time we had done a portfolio-wide survey in years; we had reached a point in our growth where it was important to pause and take in look in the mirror to see how we were doing as partners to our investees.

• Blog Post
  BoP Career Paths: Interview with Agnes Dasewicz of the Grassroots Business Fund

  Today’s BoP Career Path Series post features an interview with Agnes Dasewicz, Chief Operating Officer at the Grassroots Business Fund; an organization providing financing and technical assistance to high-impact enterprises at the BoP. Let’s see what Agnes had to say about the skills necessary to meet the demands of structuring BoP investments.

• Blog Post
  Rural Finance in C?te d?Ivoire

  After seven years working in the financial-sector, I joined TechnoServe in C?te d’Ivoire in September 2009 as a short-term volunteer consultant and later as an independent contractor, both positions in support of the Cocoa Livelihoods Program (CLP). My goal was to develop a system to provide farm inputs on credit to small cocoa farmers.

• Blog Post
  And the Granada Declaration Was Signed…

  I’m back home in Washington after one of the most exciting trips I’ve made representing NextBillion. Granada was spectacular and the ANDE Latin America Conference stood out in ways much more than a few.