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Mapping the Path to Full Financial Inclusion
When attempting to solve a complex development challenge, we often jump from creating ambitious goals to making plans, without first identifying who we need to reach with our goals, where those people reside, and what challenge and opportunities they face. That’s why one of the underappreciated keys to meeting a development goal is to draw a map - and why maps provide the theme for this year's State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report: Mapping Pathways out of Poverty.
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‘By making it available to people, you are almost by definition doing good’: Grameen Foundation CEO Alex Counts, on microfinance’s past and future
Microfinance has careened from hero to villain status over the years, before settling into its current persona as a useful but not transformative anti-poverty tool. Alex Counts has had a front-row seat in the sector’s turbulent development, as founder and long-time president/CEO of Grameen Foundation. He shares his frank perspectives on microfinance’s past and future in this video Q&A.
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- Impact Assessment
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‘Independence from Credit’: Pro Mujer co-founder Carmen Velasco discusses self-help groups, and how much profit is too much in microfinance
As a pioneer of microfinance in Latin America, Pro Mujer co-founder Carmen Velasco has had a front-row seat for the sector’s tumultuous evolution over the past two decades. In this video Q&A, Part Two in our series on The Future of Microfinance, she discusses the need for MFIs to help clients move beyond credit - and how self-help savings groups could make some microcredit providers obsolete.
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- Entrepreneurship
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PRESS RELEASE: Freedom from Hunger, Microcredit Summit Campaign launch project to improve maternal health in the Philippines
CARD MRI, Freedom from Hunger and the Microcredit Summit Campaign are launching a joint project called “Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies” to improve health knowledge and promote behavior change for more than 600,000 women by December 2015.
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- Health Care
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- Asia Pacific
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An interview with Muhammad Yunus: The godfather of microcredit shares his views – and concerns – about the sector
Though he’s a tireless promoter of microcredit’s potential to help the poor, Muhammad Yunus hasn’t been shy in voicing his criticisms of its embrace of commercialism. In a video Q&A with NextBillion Financial Innovation – the first in a series of conversations with microfinance thought leaders – Yunus discusses his concerns about the industry’s direction, and points to ways it could improve.
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- Impact Assessment
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The Eternal Struggle of Microfinance: The Microcredit Summit raised questions about the sector’s future – but does anyone have an answer?
As last week’s Microcredit Summit wrapped up in Mexico, the topics of over-indebtedness and high interest rates reared their ugly heads. The final day served up a riveting debate that pitted a representative of a Mexican microfinance network against one of the sector’s most vocal critics. The questions raised were crucial to the future of microfinance - but the answers remain elusive.
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- Impact Assessment
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Voices from the Summit: Eight quotes from prominent speakers on Day 2 of this week’s Microcredit Summit
By Day 2 of this week’s Microcredit Summit, we’d interviewed eight leaders and innovators in microfinance – from trenchant critics to the sector’s elder statesman, Muhammad Yunus. We’ve compiled eight quotes – one from each interview – which give a sample of some of the topics under discussion at the conference.
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Microfinance’s Irresistible Story: Already mythic in scope, the next chapter’s under way as the 17th Microcredit Summit begins
The development of the microfinance sector has followed a story arc that’s almost mythic in scope, including lots of good things and plenty of bad. Now, the sector is trying to write the next chapter – and events at this week’s 17th Microcredit Summit in Mexico will no doubt be included.
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