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And the Winners of NextBillion’s Most Influential Article of 2019 Contest Are …
Tough questions and tougher answers: NextBillion's most influential articles of 2019 – as rated by our readers – confronted some confounding new realities in emerging markets business, and the potential futures they portend. And here are the winners! Thank you to the hundreds of readers who cast their ballots during the holiday period – and especially to the guest writers who shared these insightful pieces.
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- Agriculture, Education, Energy, Environment, Finance, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Technology
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Five Ways the Private Sector Can Align with the Sustainable Development Goals
How can the private sector advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and what’s the best way to measure the success of these efforts? Those questions were among the topics explored at the recent Sustainability and Development Conference at the University of Michigan. Yaquta Kanchwala Fatehi and Dana Gorodetsky at the William Davidson Institute attended the event, and they share some essential insights on the private sector’s role in supporting the SDGs.
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- Agriculture, Environment, Impact Assessment
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From Early Adopters to Tech Laggards: Understanding Off-Grid Energy Customers
The team at 60 Decibels recently set out to understand the motivations of customers served by off-grid energy firms in Africa. Researchers quizzed customers in Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia about their attitudes and behaviours toward new products to find out who were the early innovators, early adopters or tech laggards. Kat Harrison and Hassan Nasser of 60 Decibels explain the research and how firms can convert ambivalent customers into product ambassadors.
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- Energy, Environment, Impact Assessment, Technology
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Financial Inclusion Week: Reflection and Action from Three Leading Voices
Today, the Center for Financial Inclusion is wrapping up Financial Inclusion Week. The intention for the week was to ask some soul-searching questions about what it means to be inclusive – and about how financial access in the age of fintech can impact the lives of millions, for good or ill. We caught up with three leading voices in the field, asking each of them three key questions focused on what financial inclusion means to them from a personal, organizational and international standpoint.
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- Finance, Impact Assessment, Investing, Technology
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Charting the Next Decade in the Global Small and Growing Business Sector: A Q&A with ANDE Executive Director Randall Kempner
The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, a membership organization of investment groups, NGOs and business ecosystem advocates, recently marked its 10th anniversary. As it approaches a second decade moving the global small and growing business sector forward, ANDE announced a new strategy that focuses on gender, the environment and job creation. We spoke with Executive Director Randall Kempner about what the future holds for ANDE and the global SGB sector.
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- Finance, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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A Watershed Moment in Impact Investing: The ‘Ninth Principle’ Shifts the Focus Beyond Good Intentions
In 2014, the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce laid out recommendations for the development of the impact investing market, in what Tideline managing partner Ben Thornley calls a "watershed moment" for the sector. Now, he says, that vision is becoming a reality, thanks in part to the launch of the IFC’s Operating Principles for Impact Management. He explores the importance of these principles – and why the ninth principle "is the real game-changer."
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- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Is Government the Key to Scaling up Graduation Programs? Results From an Impact Evaluation in Latin America
Graduation programs fight poverty by offering participants the tools and resources they need to create a viable livelihood. But while these programs have shown impressive results, they're costly to bring to scale. Tatiana Rincón and Adriana Insaurralde at Fundación Capital explore whether the graduation approach can be rolled out by governments without compromising its impact, based on evidence from a ground-breaking impact assessment.
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- Impact Assessment
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If I See One More Post About the Lack of Progress on Impact Metrics, I’m Gonna Lose It
It's a popular sub-genre in media coverage of impact investing: Think-pieces lamenting the sector's lack of progress on impact measurement. But Sara Olsen, Founding Partner and CEO at SVT Group, has had enough of this critique: "We do have the tools to understand the impact of the global capital marketplace, in all its diverse and terrible glory," she argues. And those who don't recognize this are muddying the waters – or worse, giving businesses and investors a good excuse to ignore the many options that exist for measuring their impacts on people and the planet.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing
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