Blog

On April 30, USAID’s Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project stopped to take stock of advances made in its first seven months.

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...

In the 1980s, we were a bunch of economic development players who thought that entrepreneurial initiatives by poor people, if given the opportunity and the means, could radically change their lives...

Warm greetings from USAID's Microfinance Consortium. I welcome you to our blog series, "Studying the Past, Looking to the Future: A Microfinance Retrospective." We want to reflect on USAID and our partners' work in microfinance over the past 20-plus years to share our successes and lessons learned. We see this as a chance to come together as a community of practice around a subject that is important to us all, how our broader efforts toward financial inclusion are building markets and improving lives.

Development finance institutions – such as the International Finance Corporation and Britain's CDC – play a significant role in early stage SME financing while laying the foundation for other forms of investment.

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.

USAID supported small enterprises and their access to finance since its creation in 1961, but it was in the 1980s that support became more deliberate and focused.

Through PISCES, the Program for Investment in the Small Capital Enterprise Sector, operational from 1979 to 1985, USAID and its partner organizations began to discover the principles of success for lending to the poor, opening the way for the microfinance industry.

Today we may take for granted the economic role of microenterprises and their place in a development program. But at the time these first studies and discussions were underway, development efforts were focused heavily on large firms in an effort to increase GDP through import substitution.

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.

Research suggesting that certain entrepreneurial mindsets and skills can be learned has given rise to the field of entrepreneurship education and training (EET).

The USAID-Foras project is helping Iraqi businesses make smarter hiring choices through the Foras Jobs Portal.

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.

Brookings Visiting Fellow John W. McArthur delves into this issue and tries to answer the question that impacts in nearly all African countries: How do we increase economic opportunities for our rapidly growing youth population?

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.

In honor of International Women's Day, and in recognition that gender is one of our largest cross-cutting issues, we're highlighting the most important tools, guidance, and other resources in moving gender equality forward across multiple sectors.

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.

On March 5-10, 2014, USAID’s Women’s Leadership in Small and Medium Enterprises (WLSME) program is sponsoring the 8th National Garment Trade Fair “Fashion Industry 2014: Manufactures and Equipment” hosted by the Association of Light Industry Enterprises.

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.