Blog

During the 2011 SEEP Annual Conference, Lisa Kuhn Fraioli of Freedom from Hunger explains how organizations are looking at microenterprise development and microfinance as tools to help clients.

Ning Tang of CreditEase provides key takeaways from his presentation at After Hours Seminar #57, "Overview of Microfinance Markets and Investment Opportunities in Russia and China"

Christian Pennotti of CARE provides key takeaways from his presentation during Breakfast Seminar #64.

Muhammad Siddiquee of CARE provides key takeaways from his presentation during Breakfast Seminar #64, "Understanding the Intangibles: Trust, Risk, Leadership, and Transparency in Value Chain Partnerships." In this video, he discusses the importance of understanding the intangibles in value chain partnerships, particularly when influencing behavior changes and scale-up interventions.

Read Twitter highlights from the 2011 SEEP Annual Conference below.

This blog post was written by Christian Pennotti, Learning and Impact Technical Advisor at CARE, following the "Understanding the Intangibles: Trust, Risk, Leadership, and Transparency in Value Chain Partnerships" Breakfast Seminar on November 4, 2011.

What do the tortilla riots in Mexico, the London riots, the global financial crisis, and Disney’s Finding Nemo have in common? As Luis Osorio of Practical Action explained, each demonstrates that markets are complex systems.

Dr. Bajwa explains that it is time to start building linkages between new players and existing microfinance networks.

Read Twitter highlights from the 2011 SEEP Annual Conference

At the Making Cents International’s Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference, the youth and ICTs panel mentioned a few of the many areas where new technologies can be integrated in youth development work.

Bill Grant of DAI provides key takeaways from his presentation during Breakfast Seminar #63, "Formalization of the Warm Milk Channel in Kenya: A Study in Effective Facilitation." In this video, he discusses the importance of facilitation and some of the key requirements to ensuring effective facilitation: strong value chain and end market analyses.

During my recent presentation with Harun Baiya (SITE Enterprises) on the formalization of the raw milk sector in Kenya, we discussed how good facilitation techniques can lead to the sustainable development of a value chain.

Diego Rios of the Microfinance International Corporation provides key takeaways from his presentation during After Hours Seminar #56, "Linking Remittances Beyond Consumption with Housing Microfinance." In this video, he discusses the Transnational Loan Program, which provides a “bridge” for immigrant communities living in the US back to their home countries through access to formal financial services and products, especially mortgages.

MFIC’s transnational loan program aims to create a bridge or mechanism for immigrant families to access financing for income-generating or asset-building activities in their country of origin.

300 Entrepreneurs gather in Alexandria, Egypt to pitch their ideas and win funding for their startups.

Overview of microfinance in India, Russia, South Africa and Latin America

This blog was originally posted on the CGAP Microfinance Blog as part of a blog series looking at the role public funders can play in branchless banking. How can governments effectively support mobile financial services (MFS) expansion? Over the past ten years, the U.S. government (USG) has provided both direct and indirect support for MFS program development. Here are some examples of how the USG has acted as an indirect catalyst to support program development and implementation.

“Cloud-based” services offer economic benefits, but donors supporting programs that rely on these services should be certain that implementation partners are informed consumers of these services.

Kristin Lamoureux of the SAVE Travel Alliance, a member of VEGA, explains the systems concept of the Visitor Experience Value Chain and its importance for sustainable tourism development.

Amanda MacArthur of CDC Development Solutions (CDS), a member of VEGA, talks about the six main interventions that make up the CDS Tourism Employment & Opportunity (TEMPO) approach.

"Tourism done well," according to Kristin Lamoureax, means that issues of sustainability, local engagement, job creation, cultural sensitivity, and policy issues are all taken into account.

Making Cents International Founder and CEO Fiona Macaulay provides a preview of the 2012 Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference. Fiona discusses key themes and invites participants to help shape next year's conference by visiting youtheconomicopportunities.org.

Making Cents Founder and CEO Fiona Macaulay discusses the evolution of the conference, key conference takeaways, and the importance of a knowledge management framework.

Nancy Taggart of EDC discusses the USAID EQUIP3 project at the Making Cents International Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference. 

There have been steady increases in volunteering organizations that offer opportunities for diaspora community members to return and serve in their home countries.