Microfinance helps Indian women borrow – with dignity

A group of Kenyan coastal women used a blue economy grant to establish a mud crab-fattening enterprise in Jomvu Creek, generating up to $310/month in collective income and planting nearly 1 million mangrove seedlings.

The community in Ord, Nebraska, revived their town by supporting and encouraging entrepreneurs and making it easier to start small businesses.

Vermont's community-led movement to build a thriving local agriculture economy, through nonprofit infrastructure investments, diversified farming practices, and bipartisan collaboration, has revitalized small farms, boosted food resilience, and offered a viable economic alternative to industrialized agriculture.

Nuup helps smallholder farmers in Mexico succeed through all steps of the value chain by helping them access funding, connecting them to agricultural markets, and optimizing their performance with technology and education.

With support from the Commercial Smallholder Support Project, a Vietnam village is fighting poverty by scaling up the production of a traditional snack, black jello.

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.

Infrastructure Development Company Limited (Idcol), a government-backed Bangladeshi energy and infrastructure group, is helping bring solar power to homes in rural Bangladesh that once relied on dangerous kerosene or expensive diesel for electricity. The keys to Idcol’s expansion are financing plans that cater to lower-income people, as well as partnerships with 56 grass-roots organizations like the microfinance institution Grameen. Solar energy is reliable, clean, and more cost effective in the long run, and has become a lifeline for low-income Bangladeshis living beyond access of the main grid.

Development work is evolving beyond short-term mission trips and one-off donations into a more comprehensive, in-depth model that addresses long-term sustainability of a solution paired with empowerment of those being served. MicroConsignment is a unique branch of micro-enterprise being implemented by non-profit SolCom in Guatemala that provides individuals in rural villages the skills and resources needed to start sustainable businesses.

Two columns on microconsignment, a new variation on microcredit that helps poor people living in developing countries - particularly women in rural villages - start small social businesses without taking on debt or requiring previous business skills. The organization, Soluciones Comunitarias, partners with a non-profit and a university student program to manage the supply chain and other components of the business necessary to support the social entrepreneurs in successful micro-ventures.

The non-profit Root Capital created a lending initiative in Mexico which helps mid-size rural farmers gain access to capital, skills, and consumer markets from which they would otherwise be excluded.