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Yunus Was Right — Credit is Indeed a Human Right, and Savings is Important Too: Why the Microfinance Sector Must Avoid the ‘Circular Firing Squad’ and Promote Multiple Approaches to Financial Inclusion
Alex Counts, financial inclusion pioneer and founder of Grameen Foundation, took issue with Jeffrey Ashe’s recent NextBillion article, “Yunus Was Wrong—Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right.” He argues that, instead of seeing the world through an “either/or” lens, the financial inclusion sector should embrace multiple tools, including credit, savings, insurance and more — and he urges today's changemakers to avoid promoting one social innovation at the expense of others.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise
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Sweeter Prospects for Cocoa Farmers: A Recent Study Shows How Formal Land Rights Improve the Financial Outlook for Smallholders in Cote d’Ivoire
Cocoa is one of the world’s most prized foods, but the smallholder farmers who produce it typically live in poverty and often lack formal rights to the land they're farming. Scott Graham and Anahit Tevosyan at FINCA International explore how a partnership between global chocolate companies and other industry and development sector players is strengthening farmers' property rights in Cote d’Ivoire — the source of 45% of the world’s cocoa — thereby aiming to improve their financial health and resilience.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
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UNICEF to Commit $270 Million to Support Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Betta Edu said the government will target about 71 million "extremely poor Nigerians" who live on less than $1.95 a day.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: Leila Janah Foundation Announces Winners of Sixth Annual Give Work Challenge
The challenge reflects the Foundation’s mission to create equal opportunities for women and youth in low-income communities in East Africa.
- Categories
- Agriculture, WASH
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- nonprofits, poverty alleviation, waste, youth
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Yunus Was Wrong — Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right: Here’s How the Financial Inclusion Sector Can Shift its Focus
After playing a key role in the early development of the microfinance sector, Jeffrey Ashe went to Bosnia in the mid-1990s to consult on a new microfinance project. In those days, microcredit was widely viewed as a silver bullet that could end poverty, but while working in Bosnia, he learned that informal savings groups were already providing an effective alternative to formal loans in the local community. Ashe has spent the subsequent decades studying and supporting savings groups in countries around the world. He shares research that illuminates these groups' vast global impact, and argues that they could achieve far more if the financial inclusion sector supported them.
- Categories
- Finance
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UN Report Finds 165 Million Were Pushed Into Poverty Over Past Three Years
The United Nations Development Program is calling for a pause in debt repayments to allow economies to mitigate shocks like pandemics and climate chaos.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Global
- Tags
- data, poverty alleviation, research
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Accelerating Social Unicorns: How an Impact Accelerator is Supporting the Innovators Who are Tackling the World’s Biggest Problems
The holy grail in venture capital is to invest in a “unicorn” — a startup that achieves a valuation of over $1 billion. But as Leslie Labruto at 100x Impact Accelerator explains, this approach overlooks the businesses and organizations that are tackling pressing societal issues at scale. She argues that it’s time to shift the focus to "social unicorns" that aim to make a massive positive social impact, and explores three keys to these enterprises' success.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Analysis: There Are More Refugees Today Than at Any Point in History Since WWII. A New Approach Aims to Turn Them Into the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs
If you’ve ever started your own business, you know the hard work and commitment it requires, but this challenge is far greater for refugees.
- Region
- Global
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