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Making Microfinance More Effective

Harvard Business Review

A major challenge for international development efforts is determining which financial tools provide durable buffers against such setbacks. The Grameen model of microfinance gained a great deal of attention in the international development field after early data showed that it was associated with high repayment and low default.

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Women as Microfinance Leaders, Not Just Clients

Harvard Business Review

We're a network of microfinance organizations; we exist to share practices and develop the leadership skills required by a sector that has grown up fast. And as you might be aware, microfinance is a phenomenon that, while it did not set out to be "for women," has mainly turned out to be.

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Global Entrepreneurs Need New Funding Models

Harvard Business Review

In low-income countries, according to World Bank data in a recent paper by the consultancy Dalberg, 43% of businesses with between 20 and 99 employees say that access to finance is a major constraint. The White House has called this gap between the demand and supply of finance for small and medium enterprises a "market failure.[and]

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How Large NGOs Are Using Data to Transform Themselves

Harvard Business Review

Not many would associate innovation with large, service-oriented nonprofits with decades of history. and globally, and Habitat for Humanity, which works in 70-plus nations to provide home construction, rehabilitation, and increased access to shelter and financing, gathered data from their sites to make the case for profound change.

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Funders Can Give More than Money

Harvard Business Review

When presented with a surprising idea, smart organizations will bravely listen, because what comes next might just be game-changing innovation. Six years ago, David and Donna Allman approached Opportunity with an idea that fell outside our traditional microfinance model: to build a Community Economic Development (CED) program in Nicaragua.

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Scaling Up Without Losing Your Edge

Harvard Business Review

Without economies of scale, they argued, developing societies would never develop the efficiencies needed to modernize. To address the needs of youth in developing countries, BRAC launched a girls' empowerment program, Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA), in 2008. So BRAC got into food processing.

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3 Things Driving Entrepreneurial Growth in Africa

Harvard Business Review

Fatigue may be setting in for some Western investors’ interest in African innovation, particularly those that have yet to reap rewards to brag about. Or there’s Nairobi’s SuzieBeauty, which develops cosmetics catering to African tastes at quality matching Western levels. Innovation in Distribution.