Blog

CreditEase is China’s first, and now the biggest, peer-to-peer microcredit platform working with the unbanked in China.

This blog further explores the microfinance environment in Russia and work of the Russian Microfinance Center

This year Microlinks partnered with The SEEP Network to cover the 2011 SEEP Annual Conference held on October 31- November 3 in Arlington, VA.

Following the media roundtable at the 2011 SEEP Annual Conference, Kate Druschel Griffin of Grameen Foundation's Solutions for the Poorest program discusses issues Grameen faced at the start of their program.

Following his presentation at the the 2011 SEEP Annual Conference, Dr. Sankar Datta, Dean of the Livelihood School set up by BASIX India, discusses how the microfinance industry has recently focused only on finance, overlooking technical assistance and institutional services. Datta reminds practitioners that we are not here to tap the market at the bottom of the pyramid, but actually to help the poor augment their income by providing financial services which includes not only credit, but also savings, remittances, pensions, and insurance —  the whole bundle.

Debora Randall, independent consultant based in Kigali, Rwanda, discusses how the SEEP Conference brings together the worlds of business and development.

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.