From the Field: Empowering the Deaf with Dignity
Social enterprise Mirakle Couriers offers standard courier services and employs only deaf adults.
Poverty
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Microfinance Needs Regulation
The microcredit industry needs to be regulated through policies that address high interest rates and abusive loan recovery practices.
Community Engagement Inside Kibera
Carolina for Kiberia's community focus promises to effect change that will stick.
From the Field: Vietnamese Anti-Poverty Model May Work Elsewhere
I set out to see if the organizational models of two successful Vietnamese nonprofits were location-specific.
It Takes a General Contractor
Nuru International identifies proven poverty-reduction programs and aims to take them to scale.
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Design Thinking for Social Innovation
By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to social problems to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top.
The Problem With Fair Trade Coffee
Fair Trade-certified coffee is growing in sales, but strict certification requirements are resulting in uneven economic advantages for coffee growers and lower quality coffee for consumers.
Microfinance Misses Its Mark
Despite the hoopla over microfinance, it doesn't cure poverty. But stable jobs do. If societies are serious about helping the poorest of the poor, they should stop investing in microfinance and start supporting large, labor-intensive industries.
In Microfinance, Clients Must Come First
Few microfinance institutions articulate what, exactly, their ultimate goals are and how to achieve them. If the goal of microfinance is to alleviate poverty, the authors say, then MFIs should focus on helping their clients build successful enterprises, rather than on making more and bigger loans.
Romanticizing the Poor
Market solutions to poverty, which include services and products targeting consumers at the “bottom of the pyramid,” portray poor people as creative entrepreneurs and discerning consumers. Yet this rosy view of poverty-stricken people is not only wrong, but also harmful.