Blog

A young artist is keeping the art and culture of Iraq alive for the people of Kirkuk in a gallery he established with assistance from Al-Aman, an Iraqi microfinance institution.

Iraq's rapidly expanding microfinance industry is fast becoming a strong indigenous force for economic development.

Smallholder farmers often do not maximize opportunities, either because they do not know how, there are no incentives to change a behavior, or the solution is not intuitive. Ideas42 seeks to devise solutions through a behavioral program design.

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

Mina Shahid outlines the structures and processes necessary for effective implementation of a market facilitation approach, and also identified common operating modes of less effective market facilitation projects.

In advance of the June Note From the Field on the state of microfinance in Iraq from USAID-Tijara (that comes out tomorrow!), Microlinks is featuring a series of videos from the program to give you an inside look at the progress on the ground. The USAID Tijara Provincial Economic Growth Program is a five-year initiative to promote economic growth and employment in Iraq by increasing private sector access to finance, in particular for micro, small and medium enterprises.

Oasis 500 is the MENA region’s premier seed investment and development company. Set in Jordan, we aim to support entrepreneurs by providing them with investment, training and mentorship.

The Adolescent Girls’ Advocacy & Leadership Initiative builds the capacity of civil society leaders with the goal of helping them to speak out with one voice on the critical issues affecting adolescent girls in their countries.

Peter Kasprowicz of Credit Suisse and Elisabeth Rhyne of the Center for Financial Inclusion have recently completed an examination of global demographic trends and their implications for financial inclusion.

While technology is keys to the opportunities for youth in the modern workforce – it’s more than this. Youth and women need 21st century skills, personal empowerment and behavior changes to be the driving force in the new economies.

La respuesta lógica es crear un modelo que presentara una educación y transferencia de conocimientos que prepara y alineara a los nuevos emprendedores para que con esta capacitación impacten y desarrollen todo el ecosistema.

In the last four years, Women’s World Banking (WWB) has been working on developing a youth savings model that is replicable and sustainable.

Over the past months, ManpowerGroup has been engaged in consultation leading academics and practitioners in the youth employment field to identify the best ideas for getting a “bigger bang” out of youth employability programs.

Read Twitter highlights from day one of Making Cents International’s 6th annual Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference held in Washington, DC.

So my goal is to attend as many sessions as possible where donors are presenting to really get to the bottom of how much overlap there is between what donors say they most want, and what they seem to be ready and able to pay for.

Read Twitter highlights from day two of Making Cents International’s 6th annual Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference held in Washington, DC.

The Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference kicked off on Tuesday with opening remarks from Elenea Suarez of IDB, Fiona Macaulay of Making Cents International, and Nancy Lee of IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund.

The Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference featured keynote presentations from Jose Manuel Salazar of ILO, Gabriele Zedimayer of Hewlett-Packard, and Miguel Angel Carreón of the Mexican Institute of Youth.

Join "Team Grameen" in honor of International Women's Day and help women everywhere break the cycle of poverty by taking the Grameen Foundation $2.50 Challenge.

The MPEP Speakers Corner on “Strengthening Smallholder Resilience through Inclusive Markets” confronted the reality that the majority of smallholder households have too few assets to participate in agricultural value chains.

Christian Pennotti (CARE) on securing resilient livelihoods for vulnerable populations

MFO Executive Director Guy Stuart contributes to the Center for Financial Inclusion's discussion of what it means to be financially capable.

A blog post by Marcus Jenal summarizing lessons from the MPEP Seminar: Monitoring and Evaluation when Facing Complexity.

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.

A new study finds that the Yemeni microfinance market is only 8% of its potential size, marking a significant area for potential growth.