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Does Your Organization Actually Empower Women?
Although many organizations working in international development make grandiose claims of their programs’ ability to empower women, with few tools available to actually measure empowerment, it is hard to tell if these claims are based on fact. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index is one way to ensure that they are.
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- Agriculture, Impact Assessment
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Smallholder Farmers and Big Business: 5 Insights from the Field
Modern agricultural practices and new technologies have transformed the productivity and lives of large farmers, but often fail to reach small and very small farmers for a variety of reasons. However, some pioneer companies and organizations across the world have sustainably increased the income and livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers, by sourcing produce from them or selling products to them. What do these pioneers tell us?
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- Agriculture, Impact Assessment
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Mobile-izing Savings with Defaults in Afghanistan
The number of people with phones is far higher than the number of people who have easy access to traditional bank branches, especially among the rural poor. Until now, however, no one has tested whether mobile banking can facilitate default savings programs. This is exactly what a team led by Innovations for Poverty Action set out to do in Afghanistan.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
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NexThought Monday: A New Checklist for Developing Markets for Underserved Communities
New research highlights the significance of incorporating a more “bottom-up” and participatory approach to market development – a position that contrasts with top-down methods that have dominated academic, policy and practitioner discourse.
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- Education, Energy, Impact Assessment
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NexThought Monday: And the big winners in the move to SDGs are … why not everyone?
As we move from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the transition process is filled with a mix of excitement, expectation and guarded optimism. Perhaps some of the early hesitation voiced by various stakeholders, in both the public and private sector, trying integrate the SGDs will come to pass. However, the flourishing ecosystem of large companies diligently working in corporate social responsibility, shared value and in the inclusive business arena is encouraging.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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From ‘Nice to Have’ to ‘Need to Have’: The GIIN’s Kelly McCarthy discusses the growing momentum – and ongoing challenges – of impact assessment
IRIS Senior Manager Kelly McCarthy at the Global Impact Investing Network believes that “the impact investing community is embracing the value of social and environmental impact data, which is very encouraging.” McCarthy spoke about the momentum behind impact measurement, investors’ changing attitudes toward it, and the challenges of getting companies on board in the Q&A.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Weekly Roundup 10-23-15: Impact Investing Recovers from ‘The Cooties’
Most people don’t associate Department of Labor policy changes with excitement. But this week’s announcement of changes to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) has primed the impact investing movement to party like it’s 1994. We explore the move in this roundup, along with some inspiring words on what every social entrepreneur should ask themselves, and some critical points on business school ethics.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing
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The State of Assessment: Moving the conversation forward to accelerate value creation (Part 2 of 2)
Heather Esper and Yaquta Kanchwala Fatehi of the William Davidson Institute say it's time to stop debating whether businesses should assess social, economic and/or environmental impact, and move on to a conversation about how to extract the most value. They even offer five core activities to accelerate that value.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment