Blog

The Finance Champions group was established in March 2023 with the aim to share innovative approaches being tested by USAID Missions, Bureaus and Independent Offices and to exchange learning on the topic of mobilizing finance in development. This group, which is internal to USAID, meets every six weeks, and has grown from an initial group of 20 to 160 members.

Developed through a partnership between the USAID and Mastercard, Project Kirana focused on helping women micro entrepreneurs gain the tools they need to grow their businesses in India. Project Kirana recognized the complex set of problems encountered by women micro entrepreneurs in India: limited business and digital financial capabilities, and limited access to formal financial services. By equipping women entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools they needed — including financial and digital literacy expertise, business management skills, and strategies for addressing cultural barriers — over 2,500 women were able to grow their small retail businesses and increase their incomes.

Globally, women are 18 percent less likely than men to own a smartphone. This statistic illustrates— particularly in low-income, rural households— the ‘gender digital divide’ where women are less likely to be connected to the Internet and have access to important tools that could improve their lives.

This blog is co-authored by Komal Bazaz Smith, Program Director of USAID Digital Connectivity & Cybersecurity Partnership Programs and Anthony Brown, Co-Founder, Acute Incite

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.

The White House–led Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative brings new energy and a comprehensive approach to our mission at USAID.

Learn how USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures grantees are adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Feed the Future team aims to foster the breeding of high-yielding, climate-resilient chickpea within the context of user-preferred traits. Their upstream activities are predicated on the need to facilitate downstream phenotyping and breeding activities.

Food safety remains essential to everyone, and blockchain alleviates some of the dangers to the food safety supply chain.

Explore how reframing market systems as enabling environments with pockets of momentum, rather than a series of snapshot problems, can boost market systems change efforts.

Learn how the PAGE program is empowering adolescent girls and building their job skills in schools in low-income communities in New Delhi, India.

Our next two vignettes on the trail to mobilizing private capital have arrived! Mull over these as we hunker down for the night.

Read the next WLSME story out of India: Devaprakash Ramakrishnan talks about his project's approach to building women's networks in order to grow small businesses.

This project conducts critical research and learning activities to disseminate and share with the development community to examine how women leaders of small businesses can better engage in the cashew value chain.

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.

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.

New models often face barriers to growth due to a lack of understanding of how, where, or when to grow. These businesses benefit from greater support and funding and often become commercially viable.

Understanding value chains, and how to make them work for smallholder farmers, is a central theme in research that seeks to find solutions to poverty and malnutrition.

Mercy Corps has utilized a participatory, youth-led approach in several countries to enhance youth employment programming.

How can development practitioners and the private sector effectively implement interventions that break down social barriers and empower women in agricultural value chains?

Increasing small farmers' income comes down to creating the connection to a market, which creates incentives for farmers to innovate and increase production. But the more difficult proposition is how we go about doing that.

Building on a deeper understanding of the idiosyncrasies that characterize extreme poverty, organizations have developed promising interventions that incorporate “push” and “pull” strategies.

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

Avishek Gupta, IFMR Trust, on IFMR's role in rural finance

This post analyzes primary distinctions between different lending models used in microfinance.