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From Protection to Inclusion: Making the Shift to Cashless Payments Meaningful
All around the world, social protection is evolving into much more than a safety net for the poor. It is becoming a tool for financial inclusion and economic opportunity. On Tuesday (June 19) the New America Foundation and CGAP will host a live, Web-streamed event to launch the new Global Savings and Social Protection Website, as well as to discuss the greatest opportunities for promoting savings-linked social protection and payments around the developing world.
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Charting the Change from BPO to BoP: Training the Next Generation of Skilled Labor in India
I’m typical of many of the entrepreneurs and professionals to benefit from the BPO boom who are thankful for the opportunities it has provided, but who also hope to drive India’s nascent Base of the Pyramid sector. The Indian government is spending a huge amount of money in training BoP candidates to skill them in their chosen field and set an aggressive goal to train more than 500 million people by 2022. Dealing with that challenge will require a scalable training solution to bridge the skills gap.
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- Education
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Financial inclusion for whose benefit?
The tale of financial inclusion in India is akin to that of the blind men and the elephant. You all know the story. A bunch of blind men chance upon an elephant. The one who catches hold of its tail says the elephant is like a rope. The one who touches the trunk says the elephant is like a snake, while the one touching the animal's leg insists it's like a tree.
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- Region
- South Asia
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Kenya: Equity’s Mwangi Tops the World Again
Nairobi, Kenya — Equity Bank's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director James Mwangi, has been voted the 2012 Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year at a colorful ceremony held in Monte Carlo, Monaco over the weekend.
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- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Key Findings from the Base of Pyramid Week
Last week, top executives of multinational and regional companies, leading impact investors, members of government, and international organization representatives came from around the US and the globe to learn from the IDB and each other about how business models for the base of the pyramid can launch and scale quickly and profitably. The event was organized by Opportunities for the Majority (OMJ), the IDB department in charge of spotting, nurturing and funding business models to engage base of the pyramid markets on a large scale in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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The Case for Micro-Equity: Same Infrastructure, Different Mechanism
The vast majority of entrepreneurs served by MFI loans still lack the ability to scale their business, add real value in the supply chain, and steadily increase their profitability. Micro-businesses frequently take out several rounds of loans, creating a cycle, not true sustainability. We believe the answer that not only provides additional capital and a more long-term approach, but also greater benefits for investors as well, lies with micro-equity.
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Technology & Savings: Competing for Kenya’s Base of the Pyramid
Last year alone, mobile phones transferred over US $10 billion representing almost 30 percent of the Kenya’s GDP. Our new research study examines how Kenya’s rapidly evolving market has opened up to a wide range of new and dynamic players and looks at what this means for savings products available at the bottom of the pyramid.
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- Education
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Weekly Roundup: This BoP Exit Brought to You, Courtesy of the Cloud
This week atyati technologies, a leading technology platform provider for the rural banking sector in India, with 2.5 million end users was purchased by Genpact, a $1.9 billion global leader in business process and technology management. The acquisition marks one of a handful of instances where a BoP-focused private initiative has been acquired in a mainstream transaction.
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