Micro-Savings: Are We There Yet?
Micro-savings have been described as the “Next Big Thing” in the global development agenda. But we are not there yet, particularly with regards to young people living in poverty.
Poverty
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Food Solutions
The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It by Julian Cribb
Integrating Youth Services
Governmental agencies in Oakland, Calif., are collaborating to serve at-risk children better, with good results.
Mentoring India’s Youth
The Indian higher education system centers on one test. Avanti Fellows seeks to make the system more accessible to talented but underprivileged students.
Water, Microfinance, and Innovation
Although the market demand exists, there have not been sustainable ways to finance basic water needs. That is, until Water.org introduced WaterCredit in South Asia.
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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.