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We know that part of the solution to tackling extreme poverty is helping micro and small enterprises and entrepreneurs access the financing they need to grow their businesses. USAID has long been a champion of facilitating this access...

Interview with Jason Wolfe, Senior Household Economic Strengthening Advisor with USAID's Office of HIV/AIDS, where he supports PEPFAR programs to improve the economic circumstances of households affected by HIV/AIDS.

The story of how the agency, together with its partners, transformed development assistance is remarkable; one that can teach about an agency operating at its finest and about the kinds of investments needed.

John Owens reflects on his work as the Chief of Party for Chemonics in the Philippines for most of the four phases of the Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) project.

From a field perspective, it is interesting to look back over the past 25 years to see the real global impact that USAID had on the microfinance sector and today’s new focus on financial inclusion and digital financial services...

The Kenya Rural Enterprise Program (K-REP) started in 1984 as a USAID/Kenya project. In an interview, Kimanthi Mutua, the CEO of the K-REP Group and a leading proponent of financial inclusion in Africa, reflected on how K-REP began and transformed into a bank.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. —T.S. Eliot

In the early 1980s, a few U.S. NGOs were pioneering new initiatives in the fields of enterprise development and microcredit, and many others were becoming interested in this work...

Assessing the Impact of Microfinance Services (AIMS) addressed both sides of the client assessment coin: how to improve impact and how to use client data to improve operations.

In this miniseries, USAID takes a look over the past 20-plus years at how the microfinance industry has evolved to embrace a broader financial inclusion agenda.

Inclusive market development promotes economic growth with poverty reduction by facilitating the integration of large numbers of micro-and small enterprises into competitive value chains.

Insurance can contribute to a number of public policy objectives, including improving access to health care, increasing food security, and coping with climate change. There is therefore a public policy rationale to invest in the development of efficient insurance markets that provide equitable access to low-income households.

The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, in conjunction with the Smart Campaign and Handicap International has completed an activity under the FIELD-Support LWA to design and test disability inclusive tools and standards.

Practitioners strive to work with dynamic “lead firms,” but there is little documentation of best practices for collaborating with these firms. Action for Enterprise produced a comprehensive handbook with to fill this knowledge gap.

Summary blog post from February MPEP Seminar entitled, “Latest Impact Findings on Financing Africa’s Smallholder Farms,” with John Magnay and Simona Haiduc of Opportunity International.

The goals of the study were to learn how LIFT II could help service providers make efficient, effective, and appropriate referrals to services within the district, and also how to classify clients into categories of household poverty/vulnerability.

The MOSD’s first step was to refine their grants program into a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to meet the needs of its poorest and most vulnerable populations.

Numerous efforts are underway to integrate mobile payment systems in Bangladesh as a way to provide cost-effective access to resources in an effort to reduce poverty.

Kurt Dassel and Harvey Koh who both presented at the MPEP Seminar titled, "Overcoming Barriers to Scale to Reach the Poor," gave their key takeaways.

Designers, engineers, and innovators from around the world were challenged to envision fresh, creative designs that could benefit low-income households in developing countries, leading to entries from 13 countries.

LEO seeks to support missions and implementers in improving the performance of market systems to generate growth, and to structure that growth in such a way that it is inclusive of women and the extreme poor.

The conference brought together a small group of policymakers, development practitioners and thought leaders from around the world to explore models of aid that allow for the pursuit of complex, adaptive, flexible program design.

At the 2013 Making Cents: Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference during the session titled, “Life Skills and Youth Economic Outcomes: Where’s the Proof?” Daniel Oliver, Director of Learning and Evaluation at the International Youth Foundation, posed the central question: “Many of us think life skills are important, but are they worth the investment?

On September 17, Microlinks and Tetra Tech sponsored a special presentation by EWB's Amir Allana to speak about the building blocks of learning organizations and how to enable flexible, adaptive development programming.

Microlinks partnered with Making Cents International to provide coverage of the 2013 Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference. Watch video interviews, view photos or read one of the blog post recaps.