Tackling Digital and Financial Exclusion: Women Vendors Raising Themselves Out of Poverty with Social Media Marketing
In 2020 Hand in Hand began an innovative project with Visa Inc., providing advanced business and digital training to 1,280 female microbusiness owners living in Nairobi’s informal settlements, described by the UN as “some of the most dense, unsanitary and insecure slums in the world.” But, just months after the project began, Kenya was hit […]
New Research Reveals the Benefits and Costs of Gender-Smart Technical Assistance to SMEs and Investors
Gender lens investing includes three key entry points for investors: (1) providing capital to women-led/founded companies and/or gender-forward businesses; (2) applying a gender lens to the investment cycle, such as during pipeline development; and (3) funding and supporting the design and implementation of gender-inclusive technical assistance (TA) activities. Investors often focus on the first two […]
Fostering Innovation in Healthcare Financing for Vulnerable Populations
Major progress has been made in improving the health of millions of people globally, with higher life expectancy, lower maternal and child mortality, and better prevention of prevalent communicable diseases. But in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries, access to quality healthcare remains unaffordable for most people. Without a financial safety net, a […]
How Businesses Can Make Their Giving Count
Businesses play a big part in philanthropy. Between 2018 and 2019 corporate giving in the United States went up by 13%, hitting just over $21 billion. But do all those dollars lead to impact? Open Road Alliance found that where impact projects encounter roadblocks, a staggering 46% of these obstacles are caused by funders. How can businesses avoid […]
How can young people from low-income countries get the best from financial services?
How can young people from low-income countries get the best from financial services? With goals that range from “[being] financially stable”, to “being an established business tycoon”, young people from low-income communities have big ambitions. However, due to an interwoven mix of financial barriers, they currently lack the information, infrastructure, and knowledge to pursue such […]
Advancing Gender Equality through Inclusive Distribution Networks
Advancing Gender Equality through Inclusive Distribution Networks Women play a vital role in fast-moving consumer goods, or FMCG, value chains. Much of the focus on accelerating gender equality in this space, however, has been limited to supporting women suppliers. Women can also play key roles in FMCG value chains, both as distributors and as retailers. […]
Social inequality has become an investor priority
When the European Union embraced the concept of double materiality in the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, mandating that investors consider risks corporations externalize onto people, the business and human rights movement notched a significant win. Now the notion of double materiality is also taking shape in a different guise beyond Europe: in rising investor concerns […]
Supporting refugees through financial inclusion
On Monday, World Refugee Day marked the start of Refugee Week (20-26th June) – a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. That sense of creativity and resilience has been embodied by thousands of people living in Zambia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, who have benefitted from a joint […]
Inclusive business models can help close the gender gap
Even a successful inclusive business model does not automatically eliminate long-held prejudice and bias against women. “Supporting women in agriculture is the right and smart thing to do” – this has been our motto at GROW Liberia for the last five years. But what does this mean in practice? How do you convince partners – many of whom […]
Tackling global warming through the promotion of clean cooking energy in Ghana
Globally, over 1.1 billion people live without access to electricity and almost 3 billion people lack clean cooking facilities (SNV, 2022). The world’s poor are continuously affected by the low availability of sustainable and reliable energy, with increasing difficulty in remote areas. Modern energy services are crucial to human well-being as well as to countries’ […]
