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The Mismatch: Customers Seek Holistic Solutions, Financial Service Providers Operate in Silos
Digital financial service providers too often operate in silos, designing products to solve particular financial needs. Meanwhile, users tend to blend a mix of formal and informal financial services to meet their needs. The challenge for FSPs is to recognize users' behaviors and respond accordingly, particularly to their need for flexibility and timeliness.
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- Uncategorized
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Grameen Foundation and Freedom from Hunger Unite as One Global Organization
Grameen Foundation and Freedom from Hunger, two global leaders in the fight to end poverty, announced today that they are joining forces to form a single unified global organization. Under the banner of Grameen Foundation, the combined organization will be able to reach more people across the spectrum of poverty, while deepening the focus on the very poor, especially women, its leaders say.
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- Uncategorized
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China Encourages Businesses to Help Poverty Alleviation
China is encouraging more private businesses to join its ambitious poverty reduction campaign, pledging tax breaks and financial support.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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GSMA Publishes Report Detailing the Mobile Industry’s Impact in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
At today’s United Nations Private Sector Forum, the GSMA unveiled the ‘2016 Mobile Industry Impact Report: Sustainable Development Goals’, a ground-breaking study that provides a current assessment of the mobile industry’s impact in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and outlines future actions that will expand and strengthen that impact. The GSMA also announced several industry commitments, including actions to elevate the focus on humanitarian assistance, as well as a partnership with the UN to drive ongoing engagement around the SDGs across the mobile industry and adjacent sectors.
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- Technology
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Fighting Poverty Through … Car Title Loans? A Q&A with Finova CEO Greg Keough
The words "car title loan" are usually associated with cycles of debt and repossessed vehicles rather than any positive social impact. But Finova, a Florida-based startup, hopes to change that image and disrupt the $5.3 billion emergency cash lending industry by providing un- and under-banked people in the U.S. with access to fairly priced loans, while improving their credit scores and helping them get out of debt. We spoke with Greg Keough, Finova's CEO, in this Q&A.
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- Uncategorized
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Five Imperatives to Help Address the Challenges of Sustainable Rural Economic Development
More than two-thirds of the populations in the least-developed countries live and work in rural areas, where the proportion of people living below the poverty line is generally double that of urban areas. That makes the development of rural economies critical for poor countries to meet their sustainable development goals. Peter Harlock of VisionFund lays out five imperatives to optimise that development.
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- Uncategorized
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Haiti’s Peanut Producers Oppose 500-tonne US Donation
Peanut producers in Haiti have united to block the delivery of a 500-tonne shipment of nuts from the US. They say the shipment threatens to undermine the livelihood of thousands of people in the country.
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- Agriculture
- Region
- Latin America
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Beyond ‘Africa Rising’ – The Emergence of the Not-Quite-Middle Class
The past five years or so have seen exuberant studies and predictions that Africa’s rapid growth was creating a new middle class that would transform governance and politics – the optimistic story of “Africa Rising.” But what we really see is not a rising middle class but rather a new group that lives on the cusp of poverty, getting by on $2 to $5 a day, and lacking the kinds of assets, job security, purchasing power and stability we associate with middle-class livelihoods.
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- Social Enterprise
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