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Visa and PhilGuarantee Ink Deal to Boost Credit Access for MSMEs in the Philippines
The agreement will have Visa and PhilGuarantee explore credit guarantee schemes tailored for MSMEs, widen lending access through partner financial institutions, etc.
- Region
- South Asia
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Analysis: The limits of AI in Social Change
More actors—from grantmaking to service delivery—are exploring the use of AI. However, the excitement around scale and efficiency often overshadows a critical question: What does it mean to bring machine-generated abstraction into systems built on trust, context, and relationship?
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Global
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When AI Gets It Wrong: Lessons from a Women-Centered Design Experiment Highlight the Need for Inclusive GPTs
In emerging markets, women entrepreneurs continue to face systemic barriers to financial inclusion. And as Koheun Lee at CARE explains, ChatGPT and other AI models sometimes contribute to this exclusion, reinforcing societal biases that limit women’s potential for business growth and long-term financial health. She shares insights from CARE's attempt to build a women-centered design GPT — and proposes some practical steps AI users can take to mitigate bias against women when working with mainstream GPTs.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Trident Raises $2.6 Million to Support Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Digital ID Rollout
DRC Pass aims to enhance financial inclusion and improve public service delivery.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Moving Past the ‘Infrastructure of Hope’: Why Investors, Policymakers and Entrepreneurs Must Build a Modern E-Commerce Ecosystem in Southeast Asia
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for over 95% of all businesses in Southeast Asia, and millions of these entrepreneurs have migrated their hustle online. Yet according to Macy Castillo at Enstack, due to a lack of access to reliable payment options and other tools, they are attempting to build modern e-commerce businesses on a foundation of informal agreements and personal trust: an “infrastructure of hope” that leaves them exposed to payment fraud and locked out of formal finance. She argues that this is the central challenge for economic inclusion in Southeast Asia today, and explores Enstack's solution.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
-
Ghana Brings in Trust Stamp to Build Tokenized Digital ID Infrastructure
The tokenized ID services will be provided to the NIA, other government ministries and agencies, as well as the private sector, with the National Identification Registry (NIR) used as the foundation.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Bangladesh Bank to Launch Instant Payment Platform with Gates Foundation Support
If successful, the initiative could be a turning point for Bangladesh’s financial sector - reducing costs, improving transparency, etc.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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A New Green Revolution in Indian Agriculture: How Satellite Remote Sensing is Quietly Transforming the Sector
Satellite remote sensing involves the use of satellite-based sensors to capture data about the earth’s surface. According to Sat Kumar Tomer at Satyukt Analytics, this technology is increasingly being used by Indian farmers and the businesses and organizations that serve them, generating data on vegetation health, soil moisture, irrigation patterns and other key drivers of agricultural productivity. He explores how satellite remote sensing is enabling a data-driven revolution in Indian agriculture, and how the sector can overcome barriers to wider adoption.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Finance, Technology
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