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‘Financial inclusion is not going to be realized without smartly leveraging technology’: An interview with Carol Caruso, Senior Vice President, Channels and Technology at Accion
With cellphones booming in developing countries, achieving universal financial inclusion by 2020 is no longer unrealistic. Accion has been at the forefront of digital finance as an anti-poverty tool. We recently spoke with Carol Caruso, who leads Accion’s Channels & Technology unit, about what the future holds.
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- Uncategorized
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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Philanthropy
One of the greatest challenges for philanthropy today is the very term itself --philanthropy.
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- Impact Assessment
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Can Anything Good Come Out of Playing Poverty?: The Two Dollar Challenge says Yes – if it’s done the right way
A lot of us feel compelled to do something about global poverty, whether it’s through mission trips, buying a pair of TOMS shoes, or starting a non-profit. Some of these approaches are effective; a lot are not. Shawn Humphrey explores the lack of consciousness that causes many anti-poverty efforts to fail, and describes how the Two Dollar Challenge hopes to help people develop this consciousness.
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- Education
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Weekly Roundup – 2/20/15: A Turning Point in the Evolution of Microfinance?
There has been plenty of research questioning the social impact of microcredit. But the latest studies in the American Economic Journal feel far more momentous. Conducted by prominent poverty researchers, and covering six countries on four continents, they consistently undermine the sector’s core social impact claims. NextBillion will cover the Feb. 27 event on the research and the path ahead.
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- Education, Environment, Impact Assessment
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51 Breakthrough Technologies to Defeat Poverty
Simple technologies like Kenya's M-Pesa mobile money system can have a huge impact in the developing world. Offering something genuinely new, reliable and, above all, cheap, they can stitch together communities, catalyze markets, improve economies, and ultimately change lives.
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- Energy, Technology
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Whole Foods Market Launches Campaign to Fight Global Poverty Through Microcredit
Whole Planet Foundation is kicking off its 2015 Prosperity Campaign at Whole Foods Market with the goal of raising $5 million for microlending programs worldwide—enough to help 135,000 people lift themselves out of poverty and start a new life.
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What Impact Investors Can Learn From Microfinance
What has microfinance achieved for the world’s poor? Estimates vary widely, but 300 million people are estimated to be direct beneficiaries of the microcredit movement, and more than $68 billion may be currently invested in the industry, according to a 2010 estimate from the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, a unit of theWorld Bank.
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- Uncategorized
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Time For Indo-US Collaboration in Social Impact Investing: A 5-Point Agenda
With President Obama concluding a successful visit to Delhi, the Indo-US bilateral agenda is now poised to move ahead on nuclear and renewable energy, defence collaboration, trade and investment and several other important issues. However, we at Asha Impact, a social investing and public policy organisation, believe one major issue was not explicitly addressed, both in the official dialogue and the extensive media coverage. An issue that both countries can seize upon to effectively leverage the convergence between India's overriding objective of inclusive growth and the United States' strategic interest in seeing India succeed in its development path.
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- Impact Assessment
- Region
- South Asia
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