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Ensuring That Women’s Financial Access Is Not Another Casualty of COVID-19: The Value of Agent Banking
As COVID-19 continues to ravage global economies, the existing gender-poverty gap is set to widen: UN Women projects that for every 100 men aged 25-34 in extreme poverty due to the pandemic, 118 women of the same age will be living in extreme poverty this year. Peris Mburu at FSD Africa explores why agent banking is a promising solution to this growing challenge – and how its benefits can extend beyond access to finance.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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2020 MOST INFLUENTIAL ARTICLE CANDIDATE: When Inclusion is Not Inclusive: What Needs to Change to Achieve Meaningful Financial Inclusion for Women
India has achieved impressive growth in women's financial inclusion — recent statistics show that 79% of the country's women are financially included. But according to analysts at MSC, there are troubling questions about whether these women are truly benefiting from their newfound financial access. They discuss why financial inclusion often fails to impact female customers, and how viewing financial services for women through the lens of gender centrality could help.
- Categories
- Finance
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COVID-19 Impact on Women-Led Micro Business Widens Socio-Economic Gap in India: Survey
The adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on women-led micro businesses in India has exacerbated the vast socio-economic gap, finds a survey.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Microsoft, NSDC Collaborate To Empower 1 Lakh (100,000) Women in India With Digital Skills
Microsoft on Wednesday said it has collaborated with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to impart digital skills to more than one lakh underserved women in India over the next 10 months.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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MIT D-Lab and Upaya Social Ventures Announce Collaboration To Support Women-Led Startups in India
The 2021 Scale-Ups Accelerator, developed in collaboration between MIT D-Lab and Upaya, will prepare women entrepreneurs for investment and pilot new methods to address gender financing gap.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Gender Gap, a Major Hindrance To Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Target – Report
"The focus of efforts to boost women’s financial inclusion should shift beyond product innovation to address the underlying drivers of gender gaps."
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Gender: The Blind Spot of the COVID-19 Response in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
The COVID-19 pandemic is imposing a disproportionately higher socio-economic cost on women. As Melinda Gates put it, “COVID-19 is gender-blind, but not gender-neutral.” Analysts at MSC discuss four potential types of fallout from COVID-19 that will have lasting socio-economic impacts on women in India and other low- and middle-income countries, based on multiple studies that MSC conducted between March and July of this year.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Technology
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Local Solar Enterprises Are Changing Women’s Lives in Kenya: Why Won’t Investors Support Them?
In Kenya, women are battling climate change by using solar products made by innovative local companies. Yet as Sanjoy Sanyal and Chen Chen at the World Resources Institute and Deborah Mburu at IDEAS TANK point out, these companies remain under-supported by the international investing community. They highlight a few of these women and businesses – and urge investors to get off the sidelines.
- Categories
- Energy, Entrepreneurship, Investing