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Moving Forward in a Post-USAID World: Why Women Must Be at the Center of Financial Inclusion
The demise of USAID has profound implications for the movement toward gender equality in financial inclusion and other development priorities. According to Julia Arnold and Sara Seavey, consultants specializing in women’s financial inclusion, the agency played a central role in funding, researching and coordinating global gender equality work — and without that anchor, these efforts are at risk of fragmentation and regression. They argue that this moment places responsibility on the sector itself to preserve the values, evidence and accountability structures that made progress toward gender-inclusive finance possible.
- Categories
- Finance
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Turning Silos into Synergy: An Inclusive Finance Pilot Provides Lessons for Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration
Silos and fragmentation have slowed progress in inclusive finance for too long, as the efforts of private actors, public institutions, philanthropic funders and other stakeholders are often not intentionally aligned. As Seth Spiro at FINCA and Moustapha Seck at FLUID argue, one reason for this lack of alignment is that many of the systems underpinning inclusive finance were not built for multi-stakeholder collaboration. They explore solutions to these structural constraints, explaining how FINCA’s partnership with FLUID has aligned incentives, learning and execution to overcome organizational silos.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance, Investing
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Thunes and Vodacom Tanzania Launch Cross-Border M-Pesa Payments for Uganda and China
Thanks to the collaboration, Vodacom customers in Tanzania can now seamlessly pay merchants in Uganda and China directly from their mobile phones.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: Who Really Uses Her Mobile Money Account?
While men generally operated mobile money directly, the women they interviewed in rural Ghana were largely dependent on an intermediary to complete even the simplest transaction: a husband, a daughter, a neighbor or a local agent.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: Ant International, IFC, GCash Pioneer First-Of-Its-Kind Sustainability Impact Scorecard to Expand MSME Access to Sustainable Financing
The Scorecard provides Filipino MSMEs with trusted, clear, and accessible pathways to measure sustainability performance, strengthen credibility, and unlock opportunities aligned with global environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
- Region
- South Asia
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Latin America’s Digital Bank Plata Secures $405 Million in Series C Funding, Reaching $5B Valuation
Previously focused on credit cards, the platform has now introduced deposit accounts and debit cards, delivering comprehensive digital banking solutions to Mexican consumers for the first time.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Viewpoint: Impact Investing’s New Discipline
Impact investors are not asking for less impact — they are asking for more discipline. Drawing on conversations with investors across Miller Center’s network, Brigit Helms explores why execution, unit economics, additionality, and impact-revenue alignment are becoming central to the next phase of social enterprise finance.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Global
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The Modern Data Company and Bajaj Tech.AI Partner to Deliver Data and AI Solutions Across US and India Financial Services
Through this collaboration, Bajaj Tech.AI will integrate DataOS into its financial services transformation programs, enabling clients to accelerate data platform modernization and reduce time to value while operationalizing AI use cases at scale.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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