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Calling Africa’s Social Entrepreneurs
Africa may seem to be a bit lost on the inclusive-market-social-entrepreneurship-map. Most big MFI funds have only small portfolios in the area, and the BIG success stories cited are often from India. But there’s a LOT going on. A team from Queen’s University has set out to find out how much, what, and where - and will make their insights public.
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- Social Enterprise
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Where’s the Bank? Proximity is Critical, So Why Aren’t Academics Writing About It?
Most academic papers on access to finance focus on behavioral economics and product design issues, but skip proximity and cost of access. Yet if there is one common element in all successful microfinance schemes it’s been finding ways to get closer to customers. An argument for learning how the nuances of distance influences market behavior.
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- Education
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Show Me Your Pricing Data: Transparency Helps Philippines Lead Global Microfinance
"The Philippines receives a perfect score...for the way it regulates the microcredit activities of established financial institutions." -- Economist Intelligence Unit,"Global Microscope on the Microfinance Business Environment" [1] The microfinance industry has taken a beating lately. In March, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunnus was ousted from his position as managing director of the microcredit lender Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which he founded in 1983, by the ...
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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How to Reach Out to Rural India? Practitioners and Academics In Dialogue
There is no shortage of ideas, and some would even say no shortage of products, that would help the rural poor to improve their social and economic situation. But distribution remains a key challenge. At the oikos swiss Practitioner Day 2011, young scholars, local experts and practitioners from several companies discussed how to tackle the issue.
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- Agriculture, Technology
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Telefonica and Inclusive Businesses: Interview with Alberto Andreu
Many firms are dabbling in various ways in initiatives related to inclusive businesses, social entrepreneurship, and social innovations. The challenges they face range from scope, process of forming partnerships, funding, and adjustments in the organizational structure. Telef?nica is a company that has focused strategically on these topics.
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- Uncategorized
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InVest in a Small Business, See Your Impact – In Real Time
InVenture, founded by former financial analyst Shivani Siroya, melds the P2P website model - one of the founding pillars of Kiva- with investing in SMEs in the developing world. You can go on the InVenture site and invest as little as $25 in an SME in the developing world and receive constant updates on your business’ progress and social impact.
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- Uncategorized
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Progress and Promises: Exploring the BoP with Monitor Inclusive Markets
In May, Monitor Inclusive Markets released a report on market-based solutions in Africa across six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Profiling 440 enterprises, "Progress and Promises" represents the largest study to date of social enterprises in Africa. It grew out of a simple observation: the aid model is broken. But what’s the alternative?
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- Uncategorized
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The Evolution of Financial Inclusion: A Survey of the Future
ACCION International’s Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) released an important report this week that has people in the microfinance sector taking notice." Opportunities and Obstacles to Financial Inclusion" is a comprehensive survey of 301 industry participants from around the world on "how to make full financial inclusion a reality."
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- Uncategorized
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