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Responsible Finance: Moving Money from Mattresses to Mobiles
Technology has made it possible for lower-income people living in developing countries to access financial services that were previously beyond their reach. FINCA Impact Finance CEO Andrée Simon says her firm's new smartphone app, SimSim, which recently emerged from its pilot phase and already has 35,000 users, strikes a balance between the personal touch and modern fintech automation.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Technology
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The UBI Debate: What We Know – and Don’t Know – About Universal Basic Income
Policymakers from Nairobi to Silicon Valley have lately been considering the same approach to reducing poverty: universal basic income (UBI). Evidence from ongoing randomized evaluations will be key to understanding the impact of UBI, and how this disruptive concept might fit into a broader portfolio of social policies. In the meantime, there is much we already know from impact evaluations of related interventions that can help make sense of the debate. Alison Fahey at J-PAL provides an overview.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
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Fear of a Jobless Planet: Can Entrepreneurship Counter the Coming AI Employment Crisis?
Imagine a future where robots are capable of doing just about everything under the sun, rendering countless professions across practically every industry obsolete. The first part of that dystopian vision has already come to pass. The second part hasn't, but could well be coming. What might be the solution? According to what we learned in July – entrepreneurship month at NB – it might fall on small businesses to answer the challenge.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, NextBillion Originals, Technology
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Runaway Trains of Thought: How Boosting Cognitive Bandwidth Can Fight Poverty
Cognitive bandwidth allows humans to reason, focus and resist impulses – and unfortunately, we have only a limited amount of it. Everyone struggles to make decisions when they run low on cognitive bandwidth, but the added stress of poverty consumes more of it. Creating simple ways to free this bandwidth, whether through money or time, can elevate helpful anti-poverty programs into transformative ones, according to ideas42.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Health Care
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Innovations in Financial Inclusion: Delivering Capital to MSMEs and Growing Businesses in India
India's 51 million-plus micro, small and medium enterprises are critical drivers of growth in the nation's economy, employing an estimated 115 million people. But due to several factors, including information asymmetry, the sector has been unable to access credit as readily as larger corporations. Intellegrow CEO Akbar Khan discusses some innovations and initiatives that are helping deliver capital to these vital businesses.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Financial Inclusion, Investing
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Fixing the Social Enterprise Skill Shortage: Why a ‘Fundamental Rethink’ is Needed
Social business advocates and intermediary organizations often focus on supporting entrepreneurs themselves – but there is a bigger challenge lurking beneath the surface, says Amani Institute co-founder Roshan Paul. It's crucial to build the teams that organizations need to grow and thrive in the marketplace. The problem, however, is there's a shortage of resources focused on growing those teams and talents that make social enterprise possible.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship
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Two years in: How’s the world’s first development impact bond for education doing?
Two years after the launch of the first development impact bond(DIB) for education, this innovative financing model is reporting promising results in both enrollment and learning gains.
- Categories
- Education
- Region
- South Asia
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Mobile money helps stave off food insecurity for 250,000 Kenyans
“This programme is transforming the way we respond to emergencies in Kenya,” said Dr Abbas Gullet, Secretary General, KRCS.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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