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The Art of Saving – Look to the Giraffe, the Ant and the Zebra: A parable informs financial inclusion training in Ethiopia
My Amharic skills are basic at best, but I have managed to learn the names of a few animals, including “gundan,” which means ant. In the middle of a recent savings and credit training session we conducted with farmers in northern Ethiopia, one trainer used the word "gundan." "What does an ant have to do with savings?" I asked.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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GM Giants VS Seed Saviors: Food security, contested commercial interests and a host of hot button issues are germinating
Genetically modified seeds have been hailed as the key to ending global hunger, reducing pesticide use and transforming underproductive agriculture. But in the developing world, where those benefits are critically needed, smallholder farmers are also losing their livelihoods to huge industrial farms that outcompete them in the global marketplace. Who wins?
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- Agriculture
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Weekly Roundup – The BoP Beer Business
SABMiller wants to sell more beer to Africans, wants to source much more agricultural inputs from African farmers, and wants to generate much, much more revenue in Africa. The company forecasts it will grow revenue by 10 percent over the next three to five years in Africa. To achieve that goal it will use differentiated pricing to attract low-income customers across Africa.
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- Agriculture
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Creating an Efficient Funnel for Inclusive Business: How agri-processors, farmers, food banks and the government are blending an alliance
Minka-Dev helped a growing food ingredients company in Colombia connect with smallholder farmers. The authors, both from Minka-Dev, detail the process, which involves not only farmers, but also food banks, government and business players.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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One Drop at a Time : A new book examines how CARE’s long-term efforts in the dairy value chain have benefited Bangladeshi farmers
CARE’s long-term work in the dairy sector in Bangladesh is considered one of the most intensely developed agricultural value chain initiatives in the world. Authors Kevin McKague and Muhamad Siddiquee discuss its business-centered successes in their new book, Making Markets More Inclusive: Lessons from CARE and the Future of Sustainability in Agricultural Value Chain Development.
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- Agriculture
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Weekly Roundup : Speaking ‘nuance’ to power
Unilever, Acumen and the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, part of the Clinton Foundation, this week announced the Enhanced Livelihoods Investment Initiative. The initiative aims to build up privately held agricultural enterprises as a conduit for 300,000 smallholder farmers to join the massive supply chain network of multinational Unilever. We were reminded that even as impact investing is moving with a full head of steam, it’s important not to zoom past what it’s really all about.
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- Agriculture
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$10 million Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to support smallholder farmers
Unilever, Acumen and the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, have launched a landmark Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment to Action called the Enhanced Livelihoods Investment Initiative (ELII) to improve the livelihoods of as many as 300,000 smallholder farmers and their communities in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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NexThought Monday – Why Exiting Our MFI was the Best Way to Ramp Up Impact
In 2009 Sammie Rayner co-founded a microfinance nonprofit called Lumana, which was designed to provide loans and financial services in rural Ghana. Four years later Lumana’s MFI operations were spun off in a deal with a Ghanian NGO. In discussing their decision to exit, she cautions nonprofits against getting too attached to the ongoing survival of their mission.
- Categories
- Agriculture