Blog

This blog, written by Kathryn Merckel, ACDI/VOCA, was originally posted on Vikāra Institute's website.

This blog, written by Dexis, was originally posted on Vikāra Institute's website.

This blog, written by Catharine Phiri, Senior Technical Adviser for Market Systems, Corus International, was originally posted on Vikāra Institute's website.

By Elina Sarkisova

To continue developing a deeper understanding of impact investing and finance for development, Autumn Gorman from USAID's Private Sector Engagement Hub discusses what is and what is not yet impact investing in this first installment of a four-part blog series.

This post was written by Mike Field and Abigail Martuscello, Vikāra Institute.

By Rob Henning, Technical Director, Finance and Investment, Palladium, and Aubrey Hruby, Transaction Lead, Finance and Investment, Palladium

In April’s second installment, the Market Corner continues its conversation with Sana Kapadia from Gender Smart Investing and Rory Moses, Independent Consultant most recently with the G7 Impact Taskforce and previously Associate Director at Palladium Impact Capital, about the obstacles to greater uptake of deep impact investing approaches like 

By Avnish Gungadurdoss and Ben Stephens Development Impact Bonds have an emerging record of improving impact by enabling results-oriented delivery, even in the most difficult circumstances. However, to drive sustained impact at transformative scale, we must migrate the results-oriented practices of DIBs to the heart of development spending by aid-agencies and governments alike.

By Mike Field, Vikāra Institute and Matt Ripley, The Good Economy

Finance is currently front and center in the development community - and it should be.  Finance is an indispensable driver of economic growth, the source of human prosperity, and essential to accomplishing USAID’s development objectives. 

By Priya Sharma, Jonathan Ng, and Lawrence Camp

This month, the Market Corner sits down with two impact investing experts, Sana Kapadia from GenderSmart Investing and Rory Moses, an independent consultant most recently with the G7 Impact Taskforce and previously Associate Director at Palladium Impact Capital. In this month’s first installment of the series, the Market Corner examines where the impact investing field is headed, and the role that systems thinking can play in accelerating that journey.

This post was authored by Jamie Gow, Sonali Master, Sweta Saxena, and Micaela Arthur.

This post is authored by Gatsby Africa, Lawrence Camp, and Autumn Gorman. This April is about developing a deeper understanding of impact investing and finance for development - and how the development community can facilitate and channel that capital. We look forward to engaging and hearing from you, the Marketlinks community, throughout the month.

By USAID’s Digital Finance Team and Anna Tyor, Digital Finance Specialist, DAI Project Kirana is currently training 3,000 women shop owners and managers in the cities of Lucknow and Kanpur, working to optimize business operations and leverage digital and financial tools to improve decision-making, personal agency, and revenue.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest levels of access to education and learning outcomes in the world, according to the Business of Education in Africa report. Taking into account a tremendous financing gap that has only grown since the COVID-19 pandemic started, viable solutions to address this gap through expanded public and private investment are urgently needed.

Almost every family in the world will need care services for someone in their household at some point in their lives—whether that is childcare, elder care, disability services, or help with household chores.

USAID’s $1.5 million Women’s Global Development Prosperity: Expanding Women’s Labor Force in Lebanon (EWLFL) Project (2020 – 2023) identifies women business owners or entrepreneurs. The Lutheran World Relief-led project enables women to enhance their skills, and affords opportunities to benefit from mentoring relationships and support networks.

This post was authored by Mike Field, Vikāra Institute.

On February 24, 2022, the USAID Private Sector Engagement (PSE) Hub hosted a webinar in its Mobilizing Finance for Development (MF4D) series. The post-event resources include key event highlights and answers from the moderated Q&A.

In this month’s second installment, the Market Corner continues the conversation on adapting market systems development (MSD) programs to address the care economy with MSD and gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) experts Ariane Ryan from the World University Service of Canada

Women’s labor force participation is a critical determinant of women’s economic empowerment, and yet, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reports that 606 million women around the world are not working or seeking employment because of unpaid care responsibilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for health supply security to efficiently respond to a pandemic. One key way to ensure supply security of life-saving medicines is through geographic diversification of the sources of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and finished pharmaceutical product (FPP) manufacturing.

The affordability of safe and effective medicines is a critical determinant of equitable access. The share of total health expenditures on pharmaceutical products is extremely variable in the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ranging from 6% (Denmark) to 34% (Bulgaria). However, obtaining accurate information about the affordability of medicines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is often complex and challenging, and the information remains incomplete.