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Perspective: A Digital Finance Prescription for Universal Health Coverage
There are some obvious opportunities for financial services to play a role in achieving universal health coverage. Savings accounts can help people plan for health expenses, access to credit can mean the difference between getting needed care and not, and insurance can help mitigate against health shocks that too often push people deeper into poverty. Offering these products to low-income customers is traditionally risky and expensive, but that picture is quickly changing with the growth of digital financial services (DFS), which leverage digital channels to reach more remote customers at lower cost.
- Categories
- Finance, Health Care
- Tags
- digital finance, fintech, SDGs
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Report: Mobile offers potential to drive progress in Bangladesh
In a report entitled Bangladesh: Driving Mobile-enabled Digital Transformation, the association noted the mobile industry can play “a critical role” in the country, helping to realise the government’s Vision 2021 initiative and driving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- global development, SDGs
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Research Shows Corporate Action on SDGs Already Stalling Out Just Two Years Into 2030 Agenda
In the two years since the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals, the number of companies reporting against the SDGs is on the rise, but research indicates that there is a clear gap emerging between thinking and action, with tangible plans and active involvement in collaborations on the SDGs stalling over the last 12 months.
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Who Will Pay For Nature? How To Catalyze Private Investment In Sustainability
Annual government grants today only punch in at $142.6 billion. Philanthropy produces about $400 billion per year in the U.S., though only a small percentage of this goes to environment or sustainability issues. That leaves a huge financing gap.
- Categories
- Environment
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Toilet Board Coalition Rallies Global Businesses Around Sanitation Economy
New research released for World Toilet Day (November 19) shows that the ‘Sanitation Economy’ could generate $62 billion in economic activity in India alone by 2021 — and the opportunity is even larger worldwide for multi-national corporations and entrepreneurs alike.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Empowering OPIC: Why the U.S. Should Embrace Development Finance and Harness the Power of Impact Investing
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) supports projects in nearly 100 countries around the world, leveraging limited public investment to attract billions of dollars in private capital. And for 39 consecutive years, it has returned money to the Treasury, reducing the deficit by $2.6 billion over the past eight years alone. Yet it remains constrained in the types of investments it can make. Fran Seegull urges the U.S. to let OPIC better harness the momentum of impact investing.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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UN Considering Reforms to Deliver the SDGs
As Member States and civil society begin the process of evaluating the implications of the Secretary-General’s report, this policy brief seeks to enhance the level of understanding and engagement in the debate through a review of the assessment of the UN development system undertaken by external experts and the Secretary-General’s related reform proposals.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- global development, SDGs
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Report: Shift to innovative financing necessary to achieve 2030 SDGs
“It is imperative to implement innovations that can divert private capital toward development objectives to help bridge the SDG financing gap,” UN Undersecretary-General and Executive Secretary of Escap Shamshad Akhtar said.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- global development, SDGs
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