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Viewpoint: Reforming Microfinance to Alleviate Poverty, Foster National Development
About 90 per cent of Nigeria’s businesses are considered microenterprises. Despite this huge number, easy access to funds has remained a challenge for most Small and Medium Enterprises, in spite of several government funding initiatives.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: 3 Reasons the Impact of Microcredit May Be Bigger Than We Thought
There was little evidence of female empowerment. Microloans did foster entrepreneurialism, but at the cost of other sources of income. However, subsequent research has hinted that rumors of microcredit’s demise as a poverty intervention do appear to be exaggerated, perhaps substantially, and I want to present three reasons why the impact of microcredit around the world, while modest on average, is almost certainly bigger than we thought it was a few years ago.
- Categories
- Finance
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Viewpoint: Amid a Crisis of Inequality, $2 Trillion of Tax-Free Investing in Opportunity Zones Could Benefit Both Rich and Poor
More than $2 trillion in unrealized gains sit on the ledgers of investors and corporations, according to the Economic Innovation Group. Investing these funds directly in 8,700 Opportunity Zones (or 1 in 8 U.S. Census tracts) for 10 years or more would eliminate any federal taxes due on those gains – and potentially reduce poverty via job creation and income growth related to those investments.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- North America
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Viewpoint: Can the Microcredit Model Be Improved?
Microcredit is frequently touted as an effective policy tool to fight global poverty. But studies suggest that the long-term impact on recipients’ lives is limited. Yale SOM’s Mushfiq Mobarak and the University of Chicago’s Vikas Dimble write that microcredit can help more people by modifying and extending its model.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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MIT D-Lab Awards Fellowships to Six East African Social Entrepreneurs
“We are excited to work with a vibrant cohort of East African entrepreneurs whose expertise is grounded in their lived reality,” says Jona Repishti, who manages the fellowship. “Working with local founders has certain advantages — they reflect the demographics of the markets they serve; their lived experience helps them identify unique, scalable, market-based solutions overlooked by outsiders."
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Good News for Microfinance: Grameen America Discusses Promising New Research on its Anti-Poverty Impact
In an atmosphere of considerable skepticism about microfinance's anti-poverty impact, Grameen America recently released some positive findings: Early results from an RCT on its group lending model show solid impacts on areas ranging from members' credit scores to their business operations. NextBillion spoke with Marcus Berkowitz, VP of Technology & Innovation at Grameen America, to discuss these results and their implications for microfinance in the U.S. and globally.
- Categories
- Finance
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Paycheck, Please: Why Jobs Are Better Than Charity
Those of us who “won the zip code lottery” by being born in a prosperous country often take for granted something that’s out of reach for many people around the world: a stable and satisfying job. Suzanne Skees explores how the Skees Family Foundation leverages the power of dignified, secure jobs to fight poverty – and highlights what they've learned from partner organizations about how to maximize the impact of job creation efforts.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Viewpoint: Learning from Financial Inclusion Research: What Should We Expect?
There is a real puzzle in the world of financial inclusion: Where’s the impact? The question is not unique to financial inclusion, but it is a particularly pressing one.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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