Category: Blog

Thank you to everyone who participated in the first e-MFP ROI webinar: Mobile Wallets in Kyrgyzstan and Kenya. This topic was part of our ongoing Innovations in Rural Finance series.

Special appreciation goes to Etienne Mottet (Innovation Analyst, BFC) for his interesting and insightful presentation.

Thank you as well to all who contributed to the thought provoking discussion. It was wonderful to see contributors sharing their diverse knowledge and experience.

Continue reading “Special Thanks_Webinar: Mobile Wallets in Kyrgyzstan and Kenya”

If you are attending the upcoming AFSIC conference in London, which takes place on May 5th-6th and brings together major players from the African financial sector, then you may be interested in The Economist’s latest special report.

The April 16th issues contains 11 articles which cover a variety of issues associated with the African business landscape.

e-books are a great way of accessing and transporting a large amount of information. Most can be accessed on a variety of devices, including e-readers, tablets, smartphones, and personal computers. Information about three mainstream e-book stores is presented below. It should be noted that these stores tend to present popular fiction books on their homepages, but it is possible to access more relevant texts by searching for specific books or browsing by category. Continue reading “Notes on e-Book Stores”

Microfinance – a cure all solution to poverty? Another way to gain profit from the poor? A tool for development? What exactly is Microfinance? To answer some of these questions and introduce what Microfinance is, Mi-fi has organized the first Mi-fi Day.

Our overall question is: Does Microfinance help build and / or develop local capacities where they are needed most?

Date: Tuesday, 19th April 2016

Time: 11:30 – 13:00(arrival from 11:00)

Location: University of Zürich, Main Building, Rämistrasse 71

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Continue reading “Mi-fi Day 2016 – 19th of April”

SDC’s Employment and Income (e+i) Network invites you to the next Savings & Credit Forum:

Progress and Challenges in Inclusive Agriculture Insurance Market Development

Date:           Wednesday, 11^th May, 2016, 09:00-16:00
Location:    SDC Freiburgstrasse 130, Room A2023, Bern

 

For programme and registration, please go to the  e+i shareweb.

In this post we would like to share four webinars organized and recorded by ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility.
Continue reading “ILO: Selected Webinars Related to Agriculture Insurance”

On May 4, 2016, the Facility and its partners are organizing a public symposium to look into successful models in agriculture insurance, and discuss key issues such as relevance for small-scale farmers and the role of governments to improve equity and sustainability of the schemes. The symposium will disseminate some emerging insights from the work of the Global Action Network (GAN) on Agricultural Insurance, a community of thought leaders in agricultural insurance managed by the Facility with the USAID/BASIS/I4; and good practices from the Index Insurance Forum, a community of practitioners in index insurance managed by the Facility with the World Bank Group’s Global Index Insurance Facility.

Continue reading “ILO: Symposium on Making Agriculture Insurance Work”

The World Bank’s program AgriFin webinar series is designed to facilitate peer-to-peer exchange among bankers and other agriculture finance professionals. AgriFin invite you to share your ideas, products, and experiences to catalyze learning on sustainable agricultural lending models.

Who should attend?
Bankers and other financiers interested in expanding agricultural lending.

Visit AgriFin website

The MicroSave Library contains a large spectrum materials (publication, presentations, videos) developed using experience across the globe. You can search the Library using keywords and filters, such as: Theme, Sub-Theme, Region, Resource Type, Authors.

Visit the resource.

FMO has developed two tools to support its clients in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk management. The tools below are specifically targeted at private equity investment funds and microfinance institutions (MFIs) and small and medium enterprise (SME) banks.

ESG RISK MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR PRIVATE EQUITY INVESTMENT

Experience has shown that a significant discrepancy exists between the high-level nature of environmental and social requirements and their implementation within private equity (PE) Funds. One of the main hurdles is the design and implementation of the so-called environmental and social management system (ESMS).

It is FMO’s experience that a well-functioning ESMS can help an investment fund to enhance the business performance of its investments and in finding better deal exit possibilities. To assist its clients in private equity with the implementation of an ESMS, FMO has together with Steward Redqueen designed an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) toolkit aiming specifically at PE Funds. The tool is currently maintained and implemented worldwide in PE Funds by Steward Redqueen.

MFI AND SME SUSTAINABILITY GUIDANCE E-LEARNING TOOL

This sustainability e-learning tool supports microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks that finance small and medium enterprises (SME banks) that wish to reduce the environmental and social (E&S) risks in their portfolio.

Both tools are available online to download.