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How Can We Stop Losing Our Minds?: Producing a Legacy From Development Projects, Not Just a Document
Have you ever run, funded or been part of a development project? Have you ever thought: “We should definitely share what we learned?” But then someone wrote a report and that was the end of that. Gavin Starks, the founder of dgen.net, argues that shouldn’t be the end, but the beginning. The power of an open approach to development has many benefits, he says. Done well, it changes the way people collaborate during projects — and helps them produce a legacy, not just a document.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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What Will Last Mile Distribution Look Like in 2025? Six Predictions for an Emerging Sector
From water purifiers to solar lights, the impact-oriented products can’t further development goals if they can't make it to last mile customers. Emma Colenbrader and Charlie Miller of the Global Distributors Collective explain how the organization's 140 member distributors have defied tough odds to get 13 million products and counting into the hands of last mile households. They share a first-of-its-kind report that aims to better understand the markets for these products, the customers being reached – and the business models that can reach them.
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- Energy, Telecommunications, Transportation
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Big Investors Need to Change the Way They Do Business: A Q&A with the GIIN’s Co-Founder and CEO, Amit Bouri
The overall impact investing market portfolio is now estimated at half a trillion dollars. So how are Asia – and specifically India – shaping up in terms of impact investment growth and development? Smarinita Shetty, co-founder and CEO at India Development Review, asks this and other questions in this interview with Amit Bouri, the CEO and co-founder of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). Bouri notes that despite several new retail opportunities, it's still not enough to move the needle.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Badly Needed, Hard to Deliver: The Challenges of Selling Drought Insurance to African Farmers
Millions of poor farmers in Africa can't move beyond subsistence levels because of droughts and other weather disasters. Insuring farmers against these risks is key to helping build their resilience to climate shocks. But providing this insurance – while making a profit – is no easy matter. Jim Hight explores the challenges in discussing WorldCover, a drought insurance provider that's gaining traction in Africa.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
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New Solutions to an Old Problem: How the Internet of Things, Water Kiosks and Sensor Data are Improving Access to WASH in Kenya
When well water systems break down due to a lack of monitoring or maintenance, people can go days or even weeks without access to water for themselves and their livestock. The Kenya RAPID program seeks to solve this problem by applying innovative technology and data to improve water management and distribution. Paul Wiedmaier at Catholic Relief Services explores how the program is already making a significant impact on water access in Kenya.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications, WASH
- Tags
- data, innovation, Internet of Things, water
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The Emergence of ‘SupTech’ – And How it Can Move Past the Experimentation Stage
“Suptech” describes tech innovation that enhances regulators' supervision of financial service providers. According to Arend Kulenkampff at BFA, it is leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to radically improve the oversight capacity of financial authorities and lessen the regulatory burden for providers, boosting financial innovation and inclusion. But as the suptech field develops, questions are emerging about exactly what it includes – and whether it's stuck in experimentation mode.
- Categories
- Finance
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How Do Consumers React to Psychometric-Based Credit Scoring?
Nearly 50 million Americans and literally billions more around the world have limited access to affordable credit – primarily due to a lack of credit histories. What's worse, many of these underbanked individuals are actually in decent financial standing – they simply do not have sufficiently mature credit scores. Psychometric (ie: personality-based) credit scores can address this issue – but how do customers feel about it? Saul Fine at Innovative Assessments shares results from recent surveys that aim to answer that question.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Smallholders as Customers, Not Pupils: Making the Case for Good Agricultural Practices
Good agricultural practices offer smallholders the promise of improved food safety, food quality and environmental stewardship. But they also bring the risks of implementing costly new methods and standards. To overcome farmers' reluctance to adopt these practices, Ben Fowler of MarketShare Associates and Clara Yoon at MEDA write that agricultural organizations should adopt a customer-centric approach – treating smallholders as customers rather than beneficiaries of know-how.
- Categories
- Agriculture
