Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Giving Capitalism a Social Conscience

    A disproportionate of the world's money is concentrated in the pockets of a handful. Muhammad Yunus sees the importance of social business in helping change this trend and distribute wealth more evenly.

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  • This Woman Was a Pavement Dweller, Today She Runs a Sanitary Pad Manufacturing Unit

    In the slums of India, living on the street as a "pavement dweller" is a daily struggle for survival - and being a woman on the street is even more terrifying. Organizations like Mahila Milan and the Myna Mahila Foundation are working to help lift women up out of homelessness through the empowerment of employment and breaking crippling cultural taboos.

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  • How Artificial Intelligence Could Democratize Financial Services In Asia

    The rapid evolution of technology is continually opening new doors for how microfinance projects can be implemented, improved, and scaled. The team at ADDO A.I. sees artificial intelligence as the catalyst for both microfinance and microinsurance in the emerging markets of Asia. A.I. reduces the need for human assessments, facilitating faster pay-outs and reduced losses through predictive data, while combining information such as financial histories and social media activity with historic context data to create fair, realistic risk assessments that lead to improved credit products.

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  • Making Microcredit Charities Better

    Microfinance was widely lauded for decades as a surefire and promising way to break the cycle of poverty and uplift the economies of the developing world, especially when targeted for women. But hard data has shown that, on its own, micro-loans don't serve to create sustainable change without a comprehensive approach, and that there are many other factors - such as education and healthcare - to consider when leveraging these tools.

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  • After the Nepal Earthquake, Weaving Brings Wealth

    After Nepal's 2015 earthquake, many village women were left in financial devastation and struggled to support their families. The earthquake destroyed up to 90% of small enterprises and markets, so the United Nations Development Programme trained women how to weave. As a mode of recovery, the weaving industry has helped rebuild the economic and social structures through the Panchakanya group.

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  • In Kenya, Phones Replace Bank Tellers

    Building on the widespread use of mobile phones in Kenya, applications have been developed to provide people with financial services. Through these applications people can securely receive money, save money, and make payments increasing their fiscal stability and their ability to access assistance when adverse events happen. The applications also create a record of financial transactions resulting in people being able to establish credit, receive loans, and access pay-as-you-go programs.

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  • How Rang De is using crowdsourcing to make micro loans cheaper

    A husband and wife team in Bangalore (Bengaluru) have created a peer-to-peer, online micro-loan platform to help make poverty history by addressing credit needs of underserved communities. Lenders on the platform can choose the individuals and projects they loan to, and interest rates are kept low so as to be accessible for the recipients. The platform, Rang De, has seen great success and boasts a 93% repayment rate.

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  • Where Pregnancy Isn't A Death Sentence

    In the Nigeria state of Ondo the maternal mortality rate fell by 40 percent after the state unrolled the Abiye vanguard program. Over 400 health vanguard’s were hired to ensure that pregnant women delivered their babies in healthcare facilities, rather than with traditional birth attendants. “94.7 percent of deliveries today are now handled by skilled attendants, compared to 38 percent nationwide.”

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  • M-Pesa: Kenya's mobile money success story turns 10

    Ten years ago, Vodafone's Safaricom launched "M-Pesa" a mobile-phone based payment system designed to ease transfer of money in Kenya among individuals and small businesses. With a maximum transaction of 70,000 Kenyan shillings ($675 USD), M-Pesa markets "to the base of the pyramid:" not only has M-Pesa taken root in more than ten other countries, but it counts 18 million active users in Kenya and, through access to a mobile monetary payment system, has lifted 2% of Kenyan households out of extreme poverty.

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  • Can the Graduation Approach Help to End Extreme Poverty?

    BRAC, the largest NGO in the world and one of the leaders in microfinance as an approach to combating poverty, discovered that despite its successes, microcredit did not always reach what are called the Ultra-Poor in effective, sustainable ways. So they formed partnerships and launched a new, comprehensive initiative that involves consumption support, technical and financial literacy training, and asset management to create a pathway to prosperity called the "graduation approach."

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