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Is Mobile Money Killing Off the Group Microfinance Model (And Would That Be Such a Bad Thing)?
SAJIDA Foundation, an NGO and microfinance provider in Bangladesh, recently took the bold step of going cashless. But shifting to mobile money meant the end of group meetings – the locus of traditional microcredit for decades. The NGO was betting on clients embracing this new approach, but after the initial rollout, it noted some troubling downsides along with the expected benefits. Ashirul Amin of BFA explores the pros and cons SAJIDA has encountered in its cashless journey, and how it is responding with a hybrid method that blends old and new.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Inclusive Fintech
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Melinda Gates Launches Initiative to Reduce Poverty With New Technology
Melinda Gates has launched a high-level international commission to spark new thinking on how developing countries can best harness new technologies to reduce poverty. The wife of Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates spoke at the launch of the commission in Nairobi on Thursday.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Technology
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Forget the West — blockchain will have the biggest impact in emerging markets
The biggest potentially for blockchain technology is in developing markets not developed markets, according to specialist investment bank Exotix.
- Categories
- Technology
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Perspective: If we want to improve global health, we need to tax the things that are killing us
Today, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and I announced the Task Force on Fiscal Policy for Health. We are bringing together fiscal-policy, development and health leaders from around the globe, including ministers of finance, to address the enormous and growing health and economic burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The hope is to identify underused fiscal-policy tools to lighten that burden.
- Categories
- Health Care
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