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More Questions than Answers: Impact investors struggle to present their sector to the general public
What qualifies as “impact” investing – and how exactly should non-financial impacts be measured? Those may seem like pretty basic questions. Yet at the recent Sustainatopia Impact Conference, clear answers were in short supply, as a young sector works toward a consensus on the best way to present itself to mainstream investors.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
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‘Maybe It’s Time We Start Behaving Like a Business’: The struggle of one microfinance institution to balance its social impact with its bottom line
La Ceiba designed its microfinance programs and policies around the needs and capabilities of its clients - even when this conflicted with the best interest of the institution. But now, its interest income isn’t covering its loan loss, putting its survival in doubt. La Ceiba’s loan program leader offers a frank assessment of its struggle to balance social impact with business needs.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
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(With Video) Beyond the Prototype: Wello’s CEO on product design, understanding customers and advice for social entrepreneurs
Cynthia Koenig, CEO of Wello, whose flagship product is a rolling water tank, advises against getting too reliant on a series of check boxes when it comes to measuring impact. In a video interview with NB, she talks about prototyping the next generation of the device, designed for BoP customers.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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The Best of 2013: Bridging the Gap with Early Capital for BoP Models: An impact evaluation of VisionSpring in El Salvador
It’s natural for impact investors to focus on companies with measurable social impact and financial returns. But they often overlook models with impact potential that are still in their pre-commercial phase. This lack of early stage capital can limit the development of promising businesses, leading to missed opportunities for the poor and for investors. That’s why the IDB’s Opportunities for the Majority initiative offers grants to pre-commercial pilots like VisionSpring’s eye care model in El Salvador.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment
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Pharmacovigilance Reporting Goes Digital in Kenya
Monitoring and reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and poor-quality human medicines has gone digital in Kenya.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment
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Re-evaluating Impact Evaluation: Why solely focusing on financials is flawed and other key points from a recent workshop
Organizations struggle to develop robust impact evaluations. If poorly designed and executed, an evaluation can result in misleading conclusions and waste precious resources. A recent workshop hosted by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs focused on outcomes data collection and analysis. Anyone concerned with social impact measurement, will want to check out these key points.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment, Investing
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Africa: HIV/Aids – New Investment in Point-of-Care Evaluation
International medicines financing mechanism UNITAID will invest more than US$140 million to evaluate point-of-care HIV diagnostic and monitoring technology in seven African countries.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment
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Independent evaluation validates UNITAID’s approach
UNITAID has established itself as a pioneering innovative financing mechanism with a successful business model to improve product markets for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries, according to UNITAID’s first independent Five-Year Evaluation.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment