How to end poverty? The Private Sector is Part of the Solution
Four years after the global financial crisis struck, the world still faces major economic challenges. Shocks from Europe, Asia, or the United States could undermine recoveries in many developing countries, hurting the poor the most. The threat is acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly half the population still lives in poverty, and many countries remain […]
Discussion: What advice for achieving success at the BoP?
Discussion: Achieving success at the BoP?
A philanthropic strategy for enhancing the reach and impact of individuals, organizations and nonprofits
What would you do if you found out you were using less than 1% of the resources available to help you achieve your philanthropic goals? Here’s what I did. I have served philanthropic and social good organizations in some capacity for most of my adult life. A common theme I saw along the way was […]
Simon Brown: Corporate volunteering in China – a massive opportunity
Photo credit: Arup The role of the private sector in development is evolving rapidly, nowhere more so than in China where the role of the private sector per se has changed so dramatically in the last decade. With this in mind, VSO China began research into corporate volunteering in China earlier this year. The results, […]
The Talent Paradox: Funding Education as a Global Public Good
Addressing the massive needs of India’s education system was one small part of the discussion at the most recent World Economic Forum in Delhi. But for a country that is projected to supply approximately 25 percent of the global talent pool by 2030, what could be more important than getting education right? Especially for corporate […]
Paul Polak: Achieving Success at the BoP
Question: If you build a better mousetrap will the world beat a path to your door? Answer: Without superb marketing and distribution nobody beats a path to your door. In my work with a multitude of affordable technologies over the past 30 years, one key feature has become abundantly clear: If you have met the […]
Marius Kokouvi: A Day in the Life of a Microfinance Loan Officer
Marius Kokouvi is a loan officer at WAGES*, lendwithcare.org’s partner microfinance institution (MFI) in Togo. Here he describes an average working day. My name is Marius YAKOUTO Kokouvi. For 3 years, I have been responsible for saving and loans at WAGES at the Atakpamé branch, which is in central Togo. My job is to connect […]
The Next Mobile Revolution: Boosting Women's Entrepreneurship via Mobile Money
For Marion, the challenge of starting her own business was not lack of initiative – she had plenty – but rather dearth of start-up capital. At 20-years old, Marion dropped out of school because she didn’t have sufficient school fees. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she lives, this is a common trend for many […]
The Next Mobile Revolution: Boosting Women’s Entrepreneurship via Mobile Money
For Marion, the challenge of starting her own business was not lack of initiative – she had plenty – but rather dearth of start-up capital. At 20-years old, Marion dropped out of school because she didn’t have sufficient school fees. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she lives, this is a common trend for many […]
BBC Three journalist, Stacey Dooley, visits lendwithcare.org entrepreneurs in Bosnia-Herzegovina
In early December BBC Three journalist, Stacey Dooley, accompanied staff from The Co-operative and CARE to visit female entrepreneurs in Bosnia-Herzegovina who have received microloans through lendwithcare.org. DAY ONE So here we are, arrived in Sarajevo. I’ve been given an amazing tour of the city by lendwithcare.org’s local microfinance partner and CARE Bosnia. Then straight […]
Doing good business for better health
The drive to ensure access to medicine in low-income countries is a vital priority where private sector companies, governments, NGOs, international agencies and academic institutions all have a vital role to play. True, pharmaceutical companies have not always been seen as altruistic leaders in this field, but in recent years our industry’s leaders have been […]
What role for Islamic microfinance?
Conventional interest based microfinance has come under increasing scrutiny and its benefits questioned in recent years. Does Islamic microfinance present a viable alternative? Quite possibly. Islamic, more correctly termed Shari’ah compliant’, finance is based on principles that include linking transactions to tangible economic activities, excluding financial speculation and excessive uncertainty, and funding only socially productive […]
Discussion: Highlights of 2012?
The challenges facing women micro entrepreneurs
Lendwithcare.org, CARE International Women microentrepreneurs face many difficulties in developing their businesses: lack of appropriate skills, lack of mobility and lack of infrastructure may all pose significant challenges. In such instances the provision of microfinance to address the problem of lack of capital may have a limited effect unless steps are taken to address other […]
If you are helping business, how can you achieve your charitable purpose?
This month is our one year anniversary of arriving in Zambia, to launch COTZ, an academically rigorous trial, to test the ‘ColaLife’ concept: how can we emulate Coca-Cola, to get simple medicines out to the remote rural villages where the world’s top brand seems to reach? We’ve had our share of set-backs and frustrations, but […]
Jane Berry: If you are helping business, how can you achieve your charitable purpose?
This month is our one year anniversary of arriving in Zambia, to launch COTZ, an academically rigorous trial, to test the ‘ColaLife’ concept: how can we emulate Coca-Cola, to get simple medicines out to the remote rural villages where the world’s top brand seems to reach? We’ve had our share of set-backs and frustrations, but […]
Has the debate on microfinance made us forget about the poor?
Ines ©Nancy Thomas/CARE The microfinance community can be a confusing and contradictory place. Ever growing and buzzing, it is a community built upon grand ‘for’ and ‘against’ statements, a place that is bursting at the seams with facts and figures and a place, let’s face it, that leaves even the most persistent of ‘truth-seekers’ feeling […]
Microfinance over the last 10 years: Reflections and suggestions for the future
lendwithcare.org The UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group on Microfinance recently celebrated 10 years’ of raising awareness of microfinance and the role it can play in reducing poverty. At an event, hosted by CARE International, Dr Ajaz Khan (lendwithcare.org‘s Microfinance Advisor) reflected on the last 10 years and made some suggestions for the future. Since the […]
Business-NGO partnerships: not why, but how….
For some time now many of us have woken up to the fact that there is more to business-NGO partnerships than money. Money, of course, remains important in these economically tight times – NGOs certainly need all the money they can get at the moment and it’s great to see corporate philanthropy remains strong. We […]