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Boycott Myanmar: An Open Letter to the Microfinance Community
In response to global events, microfinance has quickly ramped up its focus on refugees. But when those refugees are the Rohingya – the Muslim minority being expelled from Myanmar (and the world’s latest victims of genocide) – this new focus raises some difficult questions, says Daniel Rozas. Why isn’t anyone in the sector talking about the unspeakable atrocities being conducted and condoned in one of the fastest-growing microfinance markets in the world? “There is no way around it: When we work in Myanmar, we are complicit in ethnic cleansing,” Rozas says, in a bold call for a country-wide boycott.
- Categories
- Finance
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Kenyans in diaspora now remit four times more cash
The remittances have been the country’s largest source of foreign exchange (international currencies) since 2015 when they overtook earnings from tea exports.
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- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Digital Remittances: Now that they’re here, where are they headed?
Economic migrants send US $600 billion back to their home countries each year, most using expensive "traditional" agent networks, despite the availability of cheaper digital channels. But Xavier Martin Palomas with the Digital Frontiers Institute notes that in the past five years, we've seen a new wave of players and a renewed push toward digitizing remittances. Next month the Digital Frontiers Institute will launch its first course, Remittances in the Digital Age, to study the rapidly changing industry.
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- Finance
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Supporting the ‘Safe Journey’: How Mobile Tech is Making Migration More Secure and Less Costly
In Nepal’s rural areas, foreign employment in wealthy economies like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Korea can be a huge economic opportunity. But migrants to these countries are often exploited by employment brokers and others, who take advantage of the complexity of the migration process to charge high fees for job placements or loans. Benjamin Lokshin at the Asia Foundation discusses the foundation's innovative 'Shuvayatra' platform, which leverages mobile tools to help bridge the gaps between migrants and providers of important services.
- Categories
- Finance
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Asian Development Bank Report Looks at Impact of Digital Technologies on Remittances
Governments and international organisations can help create an enabling environment in digital finance to improve the remittance process and also have positive externalities such as financial inclusion.
- Categories
- Finance
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Refugee charity turns to crypto with $1M donation from Ethereum’s founder and OmiseGo
The crypto industry is often criticized from the outline for creating wealth that exists only in digital form, is unstable and driven by greed. That’s why a new charity initiative from top figures inside the Ethereum community might make a few non-believers sit up for a moment.
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- Finance
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How immigrants are driving digital transformation of U.S. remittances
There are about 43.7 million immigrants in the United States, and remittances sent from here by foreign-born immigrants rose to $66 billion from $50 billion over the past five years, according to the World Bank.
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- Finance
- Region
- North America
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Press release: IPA and J-PAL announce US$16 million grant from UK government to fund new research on solutions to challenges in governance, crime and conflict, and peace and recovery
Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), two research centers working to support evidence-informed policymaking, were jointly awarded a grant of GBP£12 million (US$16 million) from the UK Department for International Development to generate new research on effective policies to promote peace and good governance, reduce crime, and support individuals and communities recovering from conflict.
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