How Financial Inclusion Can Move People Out of Poverty
By Nina Nieuwoudt, Global Product Development, New Consumers Around the world this week, governments, multilaterals, and companies are coming together to celebrate Financial Inclusion Week. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the progress that we’ve made in extending financial access to un-banked and underbanked communities, and also a time to take honest stock of how […]
Ploughing the Path in a Male-dominated Turf
Husnaara ran to her house smiling from ear to ear as if she could not get any happier. At that point nothing seemed impossible; she could become a doctor, an engineer or a lawyer, go to a good university. She could not wait to give her father the news about her Secondary School Certificate results […]
Power Sector Reforms Spur Private-Sector Participation
Image above: Ivy Namasani makes a dress in her tailoring shop in downtown Blantyre, Malawi. Her store suffers from frequent power blackouts that hamper her ability to do business. As part of the Malawi Compact, MCC is supporting the Government of Malawi in its efforts to strengthen the country’s power sector and deliver reliable electricity […]
Expanding Women’s Financial Inclusion: A Win-win for Women and Financial Institutions
Rose, an astute and driven business woman runs a “table banking” operation in the heart of Nairobi. An extension of the traditional village savings and loan associations, “table banking” has gained popularity among poor women in Kenya. Women get together every month and contribute a certain amount of money. Members of the group then borrow […]
Want to Change the World? Allow the Private Sector to Do What it Does Best
For the past week, the world has watched as heads of state and global business leaders convened in New York City for the 72nd United Nations General Assembly. The agenda was far from light. Topics ranged from food security to climate change to the refugee crisis to healthcare. The task at hand – achieving the […]
Last Mile Financial Inclusion: What Will It Take to Reach More Rural Women?
Digital services – with their geographic reach, ease of use, and transparency – are driving financial inclusion and alleviating poverty. But are rural women being left behind? Financial inclusion is unlocking the potential for micro and small enterprises in poor and rural communities to grow, and reducing gender inequalities. Women with access to financial services […]
The Money is There to Fight Climate Change
Policy debates on climate change and sustainable development routinely cite the massive numbers needed to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): an additional $1 trillion annually in clean energy investments to limit global warming to below 2 degrees and between $5-7 trillion a year to achieve the SDGs. These numbers are overwhelming […]
New Report: Enabling Smallholder Farmers to Improve Their Incomes
By David Norman, Challenge Director, Business Fights Poverty Many global companies buy significant amounts of the crops they need from smallholder farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They may source either directly from smallholders or indirectly, through traders. Companies choose to work with smallholder farmers for many reasons. Smallholders are often the main producers […]
New Report: Unlocking Investment to Deliver the SDGs in Challenging Places
This report, launched today, is the main output of Business Fights Poverty’s Investing for Impact Challenge. We are hosting a roundtable event with contributors, partners and other interested stakeholders at BFP’s event in New York to mark the occasion and discuss the central themes of the report. The report asks the question: “How can […]
Women’s Financial Inclusion in West Africa: From Policy to Practice
The Decade of African Women – launched in 2010 by the African Union – has seen significant strides made by African countries to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. Notable within West Africa has been the drive towards women’s economic empowerment. Launched in October 2010 as the Decade of African Women, 2010 to 2020 was […]
Financial Education for Girls: Breaking Cycles of Poverty
On September 13, 2017, we will be holding an event with guest speakers Eva Halper from Credit Suisse Global Education Initiative and Aukje te Kaat from Aflatoun International to discuss the Credit Suisse initiative around financial education for girls. In addition, two Plan International managers from China and Brazil who are directly implementing the program […]
A New Way of Working with SMEs to Tackle the Refugee Crisis
By Kathryn Taetzsch, Senior Relief Coordinator & Private Sector Engagement Lead, Global Humanitarian Operations, World Vision International The scope of the challenge… a people-centered approach with “new actors” Out of about 65.3 Mio people who have been forcibly displaced, 21.3 Mio refugees worldwide require humanitarian assistance in recurrent or protracted crises. The international community is […]
Enabling Youth Entrepreneurship in West Africa
An Interview with Isaac Aggrey, CEO, African Social Entrepreneurs Network BFP: First of all, please introduce yourself to the Business Fights Poverty community. I am passionate about providing effective financial solutions to benefit local entrepreneurs, social impact investors, and most importantly, people at all levels of society, especially women entrepreneurs. I am the CEO of […]
The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity Searches for Innovative, New and Scalable Solutions for the Rural Poor
The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity has just launched its 2017 competition. The Fund is a US$ 50 million facility established by the Mastercard Foundation in 2015 with the aim of spurring financial systems development in rural and agricultural areas in sub-Saharan Africa. The Fund supports innovative financial solutions for design, pilot and testing […]
Making ‘People Are Our Greatest Asset’ Ring True in Company Workforces
Young women working in Myanmar’s garment sector feel very far from being their employer’s ‘greatest asset’. ‘Disclosure’ is a hot topic at present, with the BBC dealing with the fall-out from disclosing the gender pay-gap amongst top presenters, the prime minister of Pakistan resigning following disclosure about his family wealth via the Panama Papers, and […]
Creating a Climate for Risk and Innovation in Humanitarian Delivery
How CARE International empowered rural families in Zimbabwe through the delivery of humanitarian aid in partnership with private sector mobile network operators ECONET and NETONE. In August 2015, CARE International, in partnership with World Vision, started a Cash Transfer Programme in Zimbabwe, funded by the Department for International Development (DFID). The programme ran until 31st […]
Shining a Bright Light on the Role of Digital Payments in Expanding Energy for All
In an age of evolving technology and development, there may be an extraordinary disconnect in addressing the problem of energy access. Consider Vivian who lives in the Western Region of Ghana, about an hour’s drive north of Takoradi. She has a farm but most of her income is derived from buying and selling cooking oil. […]
Why Business Needs to Step Up and Help Tackle Corporate Tax Avoidance
Through Oxfam’s work fighting poverty around the world, we see the devastating impact that not having basic services like clean water and healthcare can have on the world’s poorest people. You might wonder what links poverty and corporate tax avoidance. For developing country governments, tax revenue from companies provides a significant share of the money […]
Using Technical Assistance to Build Impactful Businesses
In late 2012, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) launched the Impact Programme, an initiative aimed at developing new ways to foster the market for impact investment in Africa and South Asia. There are two investment vehicles under the programme: the Impact Fund (IF) and the Impact Accelerator (IA). The Impact Programme’s Technical Assistance […]
Emerging Trends in Digital Delivery of Agri-finance
This is the first in a series of three blogs on the role of technology in the rural finance projects supported by The MasterCard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity (FRP). In this first blog, we explore the major trends in digital delivery that the Fund is seeing in its portfolio. In the second blog, we […]