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More than Ceremony: In Rwanda, Reflections from the 10,000 Women Graduation
I’ve returned to spend the week overseeing the preparation for the graduation of the eighth cohort of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Entrepreneur Certificate program. On July 27 (a Friday), Jeannette Kagame, the First Lady of Rwanda would be attending our ceremony as 29 women are awarded their certificate. We are honored that she is able to attend, and eager for her to not only celebrate with us the completion of an extensive, nine-module, 31-day training program, but also to see what an amazing group comprise the 10,000 Women Rwanda graduates.
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- Education
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Moving Beyond Access for Meaningful Financial Inclusion: Targeting investments to improve financial capability
Who are the relevant stakeholders to help bridge this financial capability gap? We are looking to explore these and related questions through 10 or more new research projects that we initiate at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) over the next two years, with support from the Citi Foundation.
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- Education
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How Microfinance Institutions Can Manage Default Risk AND Build Financial Inclusion
High client growth and low default rates are typical benchmarks for gauging the success of MFIs. But the two measures can be counterproductive for MFIs looking to achieve real social impact through financial inclusion. Achieving low default rates and higher client growth rates together is only possible when the client’s cash flows are more than adequate to cover the average loan size.
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Insights from G2012 Mexico Financial Inclusion Twitter Conference
Great insights and knowledge surfaced about how to provide valuable, affordable, secure, and comprehensive financial services to underserved and excluded communities during a six-hour long multilingual #SocEntChat on Twitter last month. It was part of the G2012 Mexico Financial Inclusion global competition that is seeking the world’s most innovative solutions for financial inclusion, organized by Ashoka Changemakers and G2012 Mexico. Don’t worry if you missed it, here’s a recap.
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Rural banks partner with telcos to boost microfinance
Rural banks will soon have their own set of “killer apps” to better compete with bigger banks and, more importantly, expand their microfinance services in the Philippines.
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- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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NexThought Monday: Designing New Financial Products for ‘Bolsa Familia’ Beneficiaries: CGAP’s research explores how conditional cash transfer recipients manage money
We at CGAP have been involved in efforts in Brazil to improve our understanding of Bolsa Família recipients. Our goal is to counteract the prevailing wisdom held by banks in Brazil that welfare recipients are a singular block of very poor people to whom it is difficult to provide financial services.
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The Secret of Africa’s Banking Boom: Mobility
While U.S. and European banks suffer hangovers from the Great Recession and continued shock waves inside the eurozone, Africa’s top lenders have never looked stronger or been more ambitious. Why is a continent better known for political instability and foreign aid riding a banking boom characterized by aggressive pan-African expansion and swelling balance sheets?
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- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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With Business Training, Lenders Stitch Kashmir’s Private Sector Back Together
Young business people in Kashmir often find processes slow, corrupt and inefficient, leaving them disillusioned and leading them to give up. But local government is taking steps to streamline the registration process, and providing support to young entrepreneurs through its Entrepreneur Development Institute. J&K Bank has partnered with the local government and Mercy Corps to develop a "Youth Start-Up Loan Scheme" at a competitive interest rate and worth up to 35 percent of the project’s costs.
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