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Defining ‘Good Practices’ in Microfinance: Smart Campaign Director Isabelle Barrès addresses the thorny issues of profits and pricing – and discusses its next steps
The Smart Campaign was launched to promote customer protection in microfinance – most notably by certifying the practices of participating MFIs. But critics have taken issue with the profits and pricing of some certified institutions. The campaign's director, Isabelle Barrès, responds to these criticisms, and discusses its next steps, in part two of our Q&A.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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An Uphill Climb: Smart Campaign director Isabelle Barrès, on the challenges of promoting client protection in microfinance
The Smart Campaign’s numbers are growing: It has certified 39 microfinance institutions as meeting its client protection standards, and these MFIs now serve slightly more than 20 million clients. But achieving this momentum hasn’t been an easy task for the campaign – or for the industry it’s trying to improve. Smart Campaign director Isabelle Barrès discusses the challenges in part one of this Q&A.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Why One City in Congo Is Astonishingly Stable and Prosperous
Several years ago, I got a request from some officials at a well-known international organization, wondering if we could chat about the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. After some polite conversation about my own research, my inquisitors got to their questions: Why is the North Kivu city of Butembo so stable? How are members of the Nande ethnic group, by whom Butembo is almost entirely populated, so economically successful? Perhaps most important, could their model be replicated to bring stability and economic growth to other parts of the Congo as part of the project to rebuild the postwar Congolese state?
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Are Governments ‘Paying for Failure’ With Social Impact Bonds?
Three years ago, New York City launched an ambitious and unprecedented social policy experiment at its jail on Rikers Island. Thousands of teenage inmates began receiving group therapy aimed at improving their moral reasoning by addressing their beliefs and thought processes in a step-by-step treatment. The goal was to reduce the number of repeat offenses once the inmates were released. Academic studies using the method, known as moral reconation therapy, had reported success in reducing recidivism. Still, no one had ever scaled up these studies to accommodate anything like the 9,240 inmates the four-year Rikers Island program aimed to serve. This month, the program is coming to an abrupt end.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- failure, impact bonds, public policy
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How California’s Asset Pension System Uses Investments To Agitate for Social Change
Calpers, the nation’s largest pension fund, offers lessons to families with a bent for social-impact investing, blending ideology with a realistic view.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
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Needed: Naïve People with Stupid Ideas: An interview with Intellecap co-founder and director Vineet Rai
When Intellecap was founded in 2002, few people would have predicted that it would become a social business and investing powerhouse. According to co-founder and director Vineet Rai, the company’s early years were defined by failure. He discusses the lessons he learned from these failures (and subsequent successes), Intellecap’s unique model and future plans, and many other topics in this wide-ranging video Q&A.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Wall Street not giving up on U.S. social impact bonds
Wall Street firms like Deutsche Bank , Santander Bank and Bank of America are still interested in backing U.S. social impact bonds, despite the failure of the first such initiative.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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OPINION: We Need to Prove Impact Investing Makes a Difference
While measuring impact is complicated, investors, grant makers, and nonprofit organization need to have some way to assess, manage, and communicate their real impact.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
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