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New World Bank-UNHCR joint data centre to improve global statistics on forced displacement
“The scale, complexity and speed of today’s refugee crises mean we can no longer afford to respond through humanitarian action alone. It is more important than ever to mobilize resources and plan for the longer term from the beginning. This is why early access to reliable data for development partners like the World Bank is so important,” said United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
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- Technology
- Tags
- data, global development, refugees
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We Went Looking for Impact Investors – Here’s Who and What We Found
The "friction" of getting an impactful investment fully raised and closed is holding back the flow of capital that wants to be deployed, writes Michael "Luni" Libes. In early 2017, he helped launch investorflow.org, a free service that recently released a report on its first 205 members. Libes explains how the service is attempting to turn anecdotes into analysis.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- data, impact investing, research
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Financial inclusion and the right to privacy
While Aadhaar promises to bring improvements in the delivery of services to poor people and under-served communities, it could also facilitate the collection of massive amounts of information, which would expose vulnerable consumers to privacy risks—competing factors that well-crafted legislation can address.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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How Mastercard’s “Data Philanthropy” Program Is Tackling The Global Financial Information Gap
Through its Center for Inclusive Growth, an independent subsidiary of the company launched in 2013 to support financial inclusion in the developing world, Mastercard is experimenting with a new type of philanthropy: data donation. Mastercard is one of the largest payments companies in the world, and Shamina Singh, president of the Center for Inclusive Growth, says that when the Center was founded, it was with a mandate from the company’s board of directors to “think about Mastercard’s assets broadly, and then think about how those assets can be applied for social good.”
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- Uncategorized
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The Tech Revolution That’s Changing How We Measure Poverty
Countries, often in partnership with the World Bank Group and other agencies, measure poverty and wellbeing using household surveys that help give policymakers a sense of who the poor are, where they live, and what is holding back their progress. Once a paper-and-pencil exercise, technology is beginning to revolutionize the field of household data collection, and the World Bank is tapping into this potential to produce more and better poverty data.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- data
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How open data can help the Global South, from disaster relief to voter turnout
In Africa, Latin America, Asia and beyond, hopes are high that access to data can help developing economies by increasing transparency, fostering sustainable development, building climate resiliency and the like.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- data, global development
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How Flexible Financing, Solar Panels and Data Could Be Key to Financial Inclusion
With over 1 million units installed in the past four years, the PAYGo financing model is already unlocking significant growth for the off-grid solar industry. But the sector also faces formidable challenges. FIBR, a project by BFA in partnership with Mastercard Foundation, is exploring ways PAYGo solar can leverage data to make better point-of-sale decisions, customize product offerings, engage and retain agent networks, inform future follow-on products, and build linkages with other financial service providers.
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Want to Know How to Properly Measure Financial Inclusion? Copy the Retailers.
To better understand and measure how people use financial services, i2i looked outside the industry to the retail sector, which is at the forefront of how to collect and analyze data on how consumers engage with their services. In particular, retailers understand key usage indicators fundamental to their business; namely recency, frequency, monetary value and duration. That led i2i to apply these indicators while studying how to improve financial services.
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- Uncategorized