Blog

By Kendahl Tyburski, Senior Gender Program Associate, Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE)

Since 2014, hyperinflation, corruption, supply shortages, and violence in Venezuela forced over 6 million people to leave their homes in search of safety and opportunity. Migrants face barriers to finance, have limited collateral and have informal businesses and jobs. This blog summarizes four key lessons learned through the USAID Colombia Rural Finance Initiative.

The pandemic and following economic shocks have underlined the importance of resilience at all levels of the economy, from national and local governments to your neighborhood business. Access to appropriate financial services is a key component of a resilient economy. Access to the right financial services at the right time can strengthen economic opportunities and support business growth.

On August 4, 2022, the USAID Private Sector Engagement (PSE) Hub held "Platform Work and Financial Inclusion: How Can the Development Community Extend Finance for Gig Workers?"

This blog was authored by the Feed the Future Rwanda Nguriza Nshore team and was originally published on NgurizaNshore.rw

Digitizing microbusinesses and informal work can help low-income workers and businesses access more and cheaper financial services, but only if the data created by digitization can improve risk evaluation by lenders.

Platforms are poised to transform the nature of work low-income people obtain in urban areas of the global South. The digital rails they onboard workers and sellers onto, and the data trails they generate, could transform the kinds of financial services low-income workers can access. But what types of financial services do those workers and sellers really want?

Technology is disrupting traditional labor markets and creating new work opportunities for youth and other marginalized groups. The emergence of platforms is changing the nature of the gig economy. Join USAID on August 4 for a webinar exploring this topic.

USAID CATALYZE Peru increases small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and producer associations’ access to finance through an innovative Pay for Results (P4R) program, which helps financial institutions (FI) minimize their risk in lending while growing their portfolios in underserved regions in the Amazon. CATALYZE Peru has signed P4R agreements with 10 FIs, which have committed to mobilize USD24.1 million to the Amazonia region.

Pact’s longstanding livelihoods model, WORTH, is a critical tool for building financial access and incomes around the world. Since its inception in Nepal in 1998, WORTH has reached 1.14 million individuals, primarily women and girls, through 48,342 groups across 16 countries. To recognize and learn from this milestone, we recently conducted a formal review of 28 WORTH programs, 17 of which were funded by USAID.

This post was originally published on Medium. Toyota is a bustling town situated on one of Liberia’s main roadways that caters to commercial truckers and typical vehicle passengers who pass through en route to Liberia’s major cities or neighboring Cote d’Ivoire. Its location makes Totota an ideal trading hub.

This post was written by USAID Private Sector Engagement and was originally published on Exposure.

This post was originally published on Medium.

On May 12, 2022, the USAID Private Sector Engagement (PSE) Hub held a webinar in its Mobilizing Finance For Development series: Realizing the Potential of Development Impact Bonds: Is the Verdict Still Out?

Agriculture and food security, democracy, human rights and governance, economic growth and trade, environment and global climate change, gender, and women’s empowerment. What sectors do you work in? Whatever they may be, in the quest to increase local efforts for a more resilient, prosperous, democratic, and inclusive world, there has never been a better time to focus on cooperatives! What is a Cooperative?

This is the fourth post in a four-part series exploring impact investment and finance for development authored by Autumn Gorman of USAID's Private Sector Engagement Hub.

This is the third post in a four-part series exploring impact investment and finance for development authored by Autumn Gorman of USAID's Private Sector Engagement Hub.

This blog, written by John Chettleborough & Chris Henderson, Practical Action was originally posted on Vikāra Institute's website.

By Elina Sarkisova

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 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 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.