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Habitat for Humanity and IKEA Foundation to improve homes for children in India and Kenya
A €5.3 million grant from the IKEA Foundation will help families in poor communities in India and Kenya to improve homes through access to small loans and affordable, eco-friendly building materials and services.
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- Uncategorized
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- microfinance
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‘Inequality Limits Growth … and You Get What You Incent’: Takeaways from Day 1 of the SEEP Network’s Annual Conference
SEEP’s 2016 conference, themed “Expanding Market Frontiers,” continues today in Washington, D.C. NextBillion editor Kyle Poplin is there, and he compiled some of the things he found most interesting during Tuesday’s sessions.
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- Social Enterprise
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India: IFC to Extend Up to $40m to Microfinance Firm Ujjivan Through Debt Investment
International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of World Bank plans to invest up to $40 million in Indian micro finance institution Ujjivan Financial Services in form of a senior debt investment.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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India’s Microfinance Industry Clocked 60% Growth in Fiscal 2016
After years of subdued growth, the Indian microfinance (MFI) industry expanded more than 60% to Rs54,329 crore in 2015-16 compared to the previous year, according to a report prepared by Sa-Dhan, the self regulatory organisation of MFIs.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Weekly Roundup: A Different Kind of Pivot in SE Asia, a Surprising Collaboration in India and South Africa’s Sweet Move
Among the discussion items in this week's Roundup: the bumper crop of social enterprises in Southeast Asia; India's uphill climb toward financial inclusion; some mixed news about microfinance; South Africa takes action against obesity; and Sisu's carefully planned success.
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- Uncategorized
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The Microfinance Business Model: Enduring Subsidy and Modest Profit
Microfinance institutions aim to serve customers ill-served by traditional commercial banks and thus the associated business model is challenging by definition. And yet the industry has achieved impressive scale reaching 211 million customers globally in 2013. Paradoxically, recent evidence suggests that the benefits of microcredit to borrowers may be modest. For example, six prominent randomized controlled trials found small impacts of access to microcredit on the incomes and consumption levels of marginal borrowers, though the studies found some “potentially important” (though modest) impacts on “occupational choice, business scale, consumption choice, female decision power, and improved risk management.” (Banerjee et al., 2015, p. 14).
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- Uncategorized
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Can Microfinance Still Make a Difference?
It's the Yangon entrepreneurial dream: a teashop in the suburbs to call your own. But for Ma Thandar, a 39-year-old mother of two, it is just a dream – and one she’s unlikely to be able to attain.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Rwanda Finalises Process to Interlink Financial Sector
The government of Rwanda is in final stages to interlink its financial sector, a move that will see the banking, microfinance, pension, insurance as well as capital market linked together.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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