Archive for the ‘poverty’ category

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Businesses focused on the world’s poorest

April 17th, 2008

I am increasingly convinced that businesses focused on serving the world’s poorest 4 billion citizens are a very good investment whether you are looking for financial return and/or positive social impact return. That is, for those of us who seek to end poverty, the scale and sustainability potential of businesses focused on this “market segment” have enormous potential for doing good AND doing well. We don’t live in a zero sum world.

Due to the recent increase in non-charity capital flowing to entrepreneurial microfinance banks, we are seeing continued and exciting new growth levels in access to microfinance for the world’s poorest. Correctly, I would argue, most microfinance banks are focusing primarily on client base expansion with basic microcredit products. One of Unitus’s microfinance partners, SKS based in India is now adding more than 100,000 new client every MONTH! This is creating a new large-scale, relatively low-cost distribution channel for delivery of products and services to the world’s poorest families.

The initial benefits of having microcredit loans have been HUGE for these poor households. Even while paying loan rates similar to their middle class fellow citizens (ranging from 25-75% in various countries), most borrowers are comfortably paying back their loans with significant growth in net income. And this occurs with generally nothing more than the loan … that is, no business training, no additional education, etc. That is, the women (most borrowers are women) are putting their existing knowledge and skills to work with a very positive income growth result.

I believe that there are at least two additional categories of significant benefit for these poor families which are on the verge of taking off: (1) products/services which increase the earning potential of the families; and (2) products/services which increase the purchasing power of the families. The first category includes many new opportunities which enable families to earn more for the same labor input and/or protect their existing assets. Examples include skills training, micro-franchises, new tools, supply chain integration, insurance products, savings products and many other products/services optimized for these families. The second category includes leveraging the aggregate demand of these families to attract the R&D, manufacturing and distribution investments to bring new, better and cheaper products to these families thereby enabling their money to purchase more. Examples include affordable mobile phones and better/cheaper food and other staples.

And when you combine these new economic growth and stabilization products/services with a the microfinance financing mechanism, you open up even more opportunities. One example would be a small scale renewable energy electricity generation system which could be operated as a business by a micro-entrepreneur (e.g. micro utility), financed by a microfinance bank and resulting in decreased cost of energy for a family in a rural village.

These new businesses serving the world’s poorest have huge scale potential … that is, an extremely large potential customer base. This means that if operated well even a small profit per customer could result in a large total profit over time. So, you’ve now got an attractive destination for capital combined with potential for significant social impact.

Now, I know that some people are concerned that these businesses will end up earning profits from these poor families and they feel this is morally wrong. I ask though what a better alternative is? For I think it is at least as morally wrong for us to withhold (or delay) the benefits of opportunity for these families in the name of protecting them from potential abuse.

Please post your thoughts in comments.

1 comment »

Posted in poverty, social business, social investing

Is the world getting better?

February 13th, 2008

Most people perceive that the world is a pretty rotten place and getting more rotten. We’ve got more wars/violence, more inequity, Africa getting poorer, climate change, etc.

The Economist recently published an article sharing statistics about how the world is doing looking at three categories: the underlying social condition in poor countries, poverty alleviation over the past decade and the incidence of wars and political violence. The net is that while there definitely are some rotten things going on, the net is that over all the world is a much better place for most people than it was a decade ago. Here are a few of items from the article (please read the article for more details as there are a lot!):

  • 25 years ago in China, over 600M people were living on < $1/day. Today this number is 180M … meaning 420M+ people are now above this level.
  • Between 1999 and 2004, 135M people worldwide rose from < $1/day to above this level. This is more people, more quickly than at any other time in history.
  • In South Asia, the number of people without clean water has halved since 1990.
  • In 1975, 75% of people aged 15-25 were literate. Now the rate is almost 90%.
  • In 1970, the fertility rate in East Asia/Pacific was 5.4 and now is 2.1 In South Asia, it was 60 and now is 3.1. Overall, global fertility has fallen from 4.8 to 2.6 in 25 years. Africa has all but one of the countries with fertility rates above 5.0.
  • A World Bank study noted that every 1% increase in national income her person in an emerging country translated in 1.3% fall in extreme poverty.
  • In 2007, the global economy entered its fifth year of over 4% growth — the longest period of expansion since the 1970’s. Also, trade grew 9% despite all of the challenges.
  • Almost half of all humans lives in countries with growth of more than 7% per year (which doubles the economy every decade).
  • Inequality has risen in both rich and poor countries overall, but there are examples where this is not true questioning whether globalization is the main culprit of inequality. The Economist argues that lack of [quality] education is likely the biggest culprit.
  • In 1990, more than 25% of people in developing countries lived on < $1/day. At current rates, this will be 10% by 2015.
  • Income is not the only way to quantify improvement for the poor. Monetary measures understate the real gains from things such as lower child mortality, safer water, literacy and other social achievements.
  • A study shows that the number of conflicts (international and civil) fell from over 50 at the start of the 1990’s to just over 30 in 2005. The number of international wars peaked in the 1970’s and have been falling ever since. The death toll in battle fell from over 200,000 a year in the mid-1990’s to below 20,000 in the mid-2000’s. [The WHO has higher numbers.]
  • The number of incidents of terrorism has increased since 2001 although the number is still very small.

I am not trying to say our efforts to accelerate the end of poverty should be reduced, but simply to notice and celebrate where progress has been made.

Were many of these data points a surprise to anyone else besides me?

4 comments »

Posted in poverty, poverty stats

Free malaria bed nets

February 10th, 2008

A new survey by the World Health Organization on the impact of widespread distribution of free bed nets combined with anti-malarial medicines notes some very positive results. Here are some excerpts and summaries:

In Ethiopia, deaths of children from malaria dropped more than 50 percent. In Rwanda, they dropped more than 60 percent in only two months.

Zambia had only about a 33 percent drop in overall deaths because nets ran short and many districts ran out of medicine. But those areas without such problems had 50 to 60 percent reductions.

“We saw a very drastic impact,” said Dr. Arata Kochi, chief of malaria for the W.H.O., “If this is done everywhere, we can reduce the disease burden 80 to 85 percent in most African countries within five years”

He estimates this 5-year campaign would cost about $10 billion and would reduce the death rate due to malaria to thousands per year rather than millions per year who now die.

Reporting on this report in The Economist and New York Times.

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Posted in africa, malaria, poverty

How to Change the World

December 2nd, 2007

How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
by David Bornstein

Written in 2003 and updated in 2007, Bornstein’s book takes a look at the growing emergence of what he calls social entrepreneurs … entrepreneurs who are innovating in ways which bring significant new social/societal (and often economic) benefits. His book primarily uses examples from Ashoka, a key leader in identifying and supporting leading social entrepreneurs.

I enjoyed the case study format covering social entrepreneurs from many countries whom Bornstein personally interviewed over a multiple year period. Each of these people had an idea and the These include:

  • Fabio Rosa, a Brazilian who seeing many rural communities left behind without electricity, pressed for practical technologies and models which resulted in significant additional reach of electricity to rural farming communities.
  • Jeroo Billimoria, who grew up in a well-off Bombay family, founded Childline, a 24-hour helpline and emergency response line for children in distress (first in Bombay and then in many other Indian cities.)
  • J.B. Schramm, an American who founded College Access to enable poor (and mostly non-white) high-schoolers not on the college track to be better equipped and through the process of applying for going to college.

Ashoka’s model is to high-potential find social entrepreneurs in their “startup” stage and then support them through the Ashoka Fellows program providing a relatively small, personal stipend to enable them to further develop and implement their ideas . The book explains the Ashoka selection model where candidates are proposed and then there is a rigorous review process before someone is elected as a fellow. Critical factors in selection are the person having an idea that has the potential for large scale (national or international) social impact and the person’s lifetime dedication/commitment to figuring out how to actually implement it.

Here are a couple of interesting observation Bornstein made:

  • Ideas aren’t sufficient. There are lots of ideas that go nowhere. It requires a person to move from an idea through the complex process of implementation/realization.
  • “Most of the fellows I interviewed said that the credibility, confidence, contacts, and ideas they gained through Ashoka were more valuable than the money.” (p.243)
  • From Jean Monnet, the architect of European unification, in his Memoirs, that “people of ambition fell into two groups: those who wanted to ‘do something’ and those who wanted to ‘be someone’.” Effective social entrepreneurs fall into the former. (p.243)
  • “…social entrepreneurs are not selfless. If anything, they are self-more in the sense that they heed their instincts, follow their desires, and aggressively pursue their ambitions.” (p.287)
  • “…people who solve problems must somehow first arrive at the belief that they can solve problems. This belief does not emerge suddenly. The capacity to cause change grows in an individual over time as small-scale efforts lead gradually to larger ones.”

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to people who are interested in learning more of the history/story of Ashoka and to see the positive change that social entrepreneurs are making despite their minimum coverage in the media.

Read my full review.

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Posted in ashoka, book reviews, bornstein, poverty, social entrepreneurs

Microfinance 3.0

November 18th, 2007

After spending time in India and the Philippines over the past few months with some of the world’s most innovative and fast-growing microfinance organizations from around the globe, I have a few thoughts on the next phase of microfinance which we are about to see flourishing over the next 3-5 years. I will refer to this as “Microfinance 3.0″.

“Microfinance 1.0″ (M1) is the model used to start most microfinance programs in most countries. M1 is generally started as a non-profit entity which is funded by donors and primarily focuses on developing a successful model for deploying microloans to poor entrepreneurs … which includes having a high repayment rate on loans and starting to move towards getting enough clients (scale) in order to become break-even with lessening reliance on donation capital. Most MFIs (I would guestimate 95%+) never graduate beyond M1 status.

“Microfinance 2.0″ (M2) is a new phase for microfinance which is characterized by high-growth of operations combined with professionalization, systemization, access to capital markets and new product development. The credit model proved in M1 is now rolled out at a dramatic new pace … opening new branches, hiring staff, implementing internal controls, etc. which require investments in computer systems, experienced management and access to capital which quickly outstrips the capability of donors. M2 orgs must build substantial business relationships with banks and investors who have the resources to support this new level of growth. This also means more accountability including a strong board of directors and much more detailed financial reporting to all stakeholders. Additionally, development of new and enhancement of existing financial products begins in order to better serve the clients.

“Microfinance 3.0″ (M3) is the next phase that is starting to emerge. In the few mature markets for microfinance like Bangladesh and Bolivia, many of the more mature MFIs have converted in regulated banks which is one of the options available to mature, sizeable MFIs. Generally, though becoming a regulated bank is not a feasible short or medium-term option for most late stage M2 MFIs. Instead, I am seeing “mature” M2 MFIs starting to pursue the following strategies:

  • Supply Aggregation. Selling the aggregated supply of their borrowers in order to increase the income of their borrowers. As one senior exec at a large MFI in India told me … the #1 business we are financing for our borrowers is milk-producing cows and buffaloes — we can organize the selling of their milk for a better price than they can receive today. Another MFI is providing the raw materials to their borrowers for making incense sticks which they agree to purchase back at a higher price than they could get themselves. The MFI then sells the incense sticks to retail and wholesale purchases cutting out many middlemen who historically took most of the profit/margin.
  • Demand Aggregation. Aggregating the buying power of clients/members in order to lower prices paid for goods by clients/members. This is similar to the Costco member model in the USA where members get access to products at a lower price due to their collective buying power. A MFI senior exec told me that they are seeing many opportunities to provide both products and services to their clients which save their clients money (e.g. on food staples) and give them new benefits (e.g. health insurance) at affordable prices and with improved quality over their current choices (or for the first time.)
  • Business-in-a-box. Anyone who has visited microfinance borrowers is struck by how hard they work to run their businesses to further their livelihoods. The fact though is that many of these people are not very entrepreneurial … that is, they are running businesses which have an upper limit to the profit potential. There are now a large number of true entrepreneurs developing very interesting self-employment (or a few employees) businesses which are like microfranchises. That is, where the business model, inventory supply, branding, portable kiosk, etc. is provided and with a little training an individual can without extraordinary entrepreneurial skills run an even more profitable mini-business.
  • Savings programs. Despite the central bank limitations of providing savings to the poor, many MFIs are actively investigating new ways to provide safe and helpful savings programs. One of the huge benefits of enabling savings is that a MFI can lower its cost of capital which they can then pass along in lower interest rates to borrowers. [I realize that savings are a much larger topic which I will expand in a future post!]

Is every market ready for M3? No. Many markets/countries are almost exclusively in the M1 stage and will be for some time. I am providing this proposed M1/M2/M3 framework to explain the evolution of financial services to the poor as it matures in specific markets over time. I am excited to see that the poor are increasingly being viewed as “investable” … a good and reasonable investment. While this has the risk of potential for exploitation (like with payday lending in the USA), I think that there are many more upsides overall which benefit the world’s poorest.

3 comments »

Posted in demand aggregation, microfinance, microfranchise, poverty, supply aggregation

Ebay enables investing in microfinance

November 18th, 2007

Ebay recently opened a new web site called MicroPlace which enables individuals to make loans to the world’s working very poor. This enables what I refer to as Socially Responsible Investing version 2 … choosing to make a positive social impact with your investing.

Here’s generally how it works:

  • You can preview the investment options … currently there are 15 choices of microfinance institutions (MFIs) across 11 countries. The term of the loans ranges from 2-4 years and the interest rate paid ranges from 1.5-3% per annum.
  • To make an investment, you create an online account…email address, password and then [unfortunately] a lot of personal information which they are required to capture as a securities broker.
  • You can then invest a minimum of $100. This means that almost anyone can invest which is great! You fund your investment through Paypal (another Ebay company) or directly with a checking account transfer.
  • Once you’ve made your investment, you can track it on their web site.

I have written previously about Kiva, another way to provide loans to microentrepreneurs. I thought it would be helpful to compare and contrast these two services.

Here’s a summary comparison … Kiva let’s you loan directly to a specific borrower which is much more personalized. The downside of Kiva is that you are receiving no interest on your loan. On the risk (of getting your loan repaid) side, with Kiva you need to manage your own risk by splitting up your loans across multiple borrowers whereas you’re investing in a fund with Microplace so your risk is already diversified across a group of borrowers (although typically with one MFI). Generally, Kiva loans are shorter duration. Currently Kiva provides many more countries and MFI partner options … although because of its popularity there are often on a few borrower loans listed at any given time.

More resources

1 comment »

Posted in ebay, kiva, microfinance, microplace, poverty, social investing

One Laptop per Child offer

November 12th, 2007

I just ordered two laptop computers … for a total of $399 plus $25 shipping. One gets shipped to me and one gets delivered to an impoverished child.

NOTE: This is a special offer which started today and goes through Nov 26th only. So, if you’re interested in seeing (and supporting) what is an amazing breakthrough in bringing computers to the bottom of the pyramid, check it out @ LaptopGiving.org. You can also just purchase laptops for children if you like @ $200/laptop.

This is the brainchild of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative which I previously wrote about. This has previously been referred to as the “$100 laptop”. $100 is still the goal, but will require more volume to achieve that level of cost structure.

Founder Nicholas Negroponte says “It’s an education project, not a laptop project.” OLPC’s goal: To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves. More…

The laptop truly is a breakthrough in thinking. Read New York Times review or watch the New York Times video review below.

See more videos on OLPC at OLPC.tv

So, do I really need another laptop? No. I’m buying this laptop so that I can be a better ambassador for this initiative. The green laptop will catch a lot of attention!

My challenge: Why don’t you consider doing this as well?
Please post a comment if you take on my challenge.

3 comments »

Posted in Negroponte, OLPC, children, computers, laptop, poverty, social enterprise

Malaria solution continues to be stalled

November 7th, 2007

I previously wrote about how there is growing widespread support for indoor residential (not crop) spraying of [small amounts of] DDT as the most effective (cost and results) way of decreasing malaria in many countries and especially Africa.

Dr. Roger Bate, board member of Africa Fighting Malaria, comments that “DDT is probably the single most valuable chemical ever synthesized to prevent disease. It has been used continually in public health programs over the past sixty years and has saved millions from diseases like malaria, typhus, and yellow fever. Despite a public backlash in the 1960s, mainstream scientific and public health communities continue to recognize its utility and safety.”

He goes on to say, “Developing nations are skittish. Their populations have been scared by environmentalists into thinking DDT causes cancer and birth defects; and their farmers have been frightened by EU officials and segments of the Western chemical industry into believing their crop exports will be boycotted. As a result, many African leaders have delayed re-introduction of DDT, perhaps indefinitely. Over the past three years, for example, two different Ugandan health ministers have wanted to deploy DDT indoors, but fearful of Western trade reprisals, their farmers have blocked all attempts to do so.”

Find out more on advocacy site FightingMalaria.org

What ideas do you have in helping to overcome the misperceptions of DDT?

5 comments »

Posted in ddt, malaria, poverty

Zero defaults not good for innovation

November 5th, 2007

One of the key metrics tracked closely by microfinance institutions (MFIs) is the percent of the loan portfolio at risk (PAR) after 30 days. That is, what % of the loans outstanding are in arrears more than 30 days. This is viewed as an important indicator of the “health” of a loan portfolio and the health of the MFI.

In some countries, there is a perception/expectation that 30-day PAR (PAR30) should be almost zero. For instance, in India, most the high-growth organizations have PAR30 of less than 2% and some have very close to zero. This is achieved through a number of methodology implementations including manageable loan sizes/payments, group guarantee/social capital, frequent repayments, etc. In other countries (e.g. many countries in Latin America), the typical PAR30 is in the 5-10% range. There are no absolute right or wrong levels (although getting above 10% can have some potentially very negative tipping point issues), just different models in different locales.

At the recent Unitus Leadership Summit, there was an interesting discussion amongst some of the world’s fastest-growing and innovative MFIs around what the target rate for PAR30 should be. On one hand, low PAR indicates that your system is working well and you don’t have to have your in-good-standing clients paying more to subsidize your delinquent borrows. On the other hand, it is very difficult to innovate in without experimenting … and experimentation often leads to, at least, some short-term decrease in PAR as you’re ironing out the process.

Some of the innovations under development are:

  • moving from weekly to bi-weekly repayments … this is an oft-requested feature by clients as it would reduce the amount of time spent on transactions
  • individual loans instead of group loans … essentially not using a group incentive model
  • loans to men … most MFIs only loan to women
  • different repayment installment models … e.g. rather than typical equal amount of principle and interest on each repayment, offer some balloon repayment options
  • agriculture-related loans … most MFIs currently don’t provide this type of loans due to the high risk of crop failures and the seasonality factors
  • higher loan size … ramping up size of loan more quickly based on individual needs and capacities … most MFIs have fairly similar loan size increases purely based on how long you have been a borrower in good standing
  • early repayment options … requested by some borrowers who want to pay off early to lower interest payments and, in some cases, accelerate to next larger loan size
  • new financial products such as insurance

I think that we should encourage MFIs to be more innovative in developing and experimenting with new financial services for the working poor even if this results in some marginally higher default rates in the short-run as ultimately the innovations will provide more value/benefit to the clients.

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Posted in innovation, microfinance, poverty

Increasing Microfinance Productivity

October 31st, 2007
Photo by me of rural microfinance center meeting near Bangalore, India in September 2007. The gentleman in the middle is the loan officer from Grameen Koota MFI. The woman to his right is the elected center leader for this group of 30 women. The others were part of our Unitus Partner Expedition trip which my wife & I hosted … enabling westerners to get a hands-on experience of microfinance.

Last week, I was in the Philippines for the Unitus Leadership Summit, an annual gathering of some of the globe’s top social entrepreneurs running many of the most innovative and fastest-growing microfinance institutions in some of the poorest areas of the world. It was a privilege to listen in on sessions where they shared what was working, what wasn’t, their challenges and their aspirations. While some of them are considered competitors, they shared very openly about the experiments they were doing in areas such as mobile banking, product development, increasing operational efficiency, raising capital, high-capacity staff recruiting and training and more.

One of the most fascinating topics was their focus on innovating to increase the productivity of their largest group of staff, loan officers. Loan officers are the front-line staff who directly provide financial services (including microcredit) to their bottom of the pyramid customers and make up 70%+ of their staff count. If they can increase loan officer productivity, their whole cost structure goes down and ultimately they can pass the savings on to the customer in the form of lower interest rates. So, this is a very important metric!

Many MFI’s are happy if a single loan officer can serve 300 clients at a time. [Remember the loan officer goes to the client and often they meet once per week with every client, so the number of touchpoints and travel time is significant.] The conversation started off with how they were not satisfied that 750 (!) clients per loan officer was the maximum productivity. Many of them are now reaching this level of productivity. They get to the 750 number as center groups of 50, 3 center meetings per day and 5 days per week. Of course, there’s the recruitment of new members, new member training, follow-up on members, data entry, various paperwork, etc. which also needs to be done.

So, we had a brainstorming session on ways to further increase productivity without overloading a loan officer. Here are some of the ideas that came up:

  • Reduce the maximum radius to client location to 10km (usually now further)
  • Collections every 2 weeks (half the # of trips/meetings)
  • Deploy handheld/wireless devices to loan officers to reduce paperwork and cash-handling time and cost of float (and reduce group meeting time)
  • Create pre-printed stickers to put in client passbooks (rather than having to handwrite each entry in each passbook…loan officer has to do this as most women are illiterate)

But then the discussion went in a different direction … rather than focusing on the # of clients per loan officer as the productivity metric, why not focus on margin generated per loan officer? This has a number of implications and issues including:

  • This would encourage innovation around offering additional products to clients so that meeting times have a lower relative transaction cost. e.g. if you also provided insurance products or health products in the same client meeting, there is a much smaller incremental cost as the meeting is already scheduled.
  • Would loan officers be able to handle a broader range of products well?
  • Would this type of focus increase or decrease client retention long-term?
  • Will loan officers then seek to focus on less poor clients who have capacity for say larger loans with more margin?

So, there wasn’t any silver bullet and with every attempt to innovate there is going to need to be experimentation and refinement. But, I really liked the continuous improvement attitude that they demonstrated and the willingness to challenge the current status quo thinking.

4 comments »

Posted in innovation, microfinance, poverty, productivity

Bandhan helping the poor move ahead

October 31st, 2007

I had the opportunity to visit microfinance superstar Bandhan in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India last month and then had the opportunity to catch up with C.S. Ghosh, Bandhan’s CEO last week in the Philippines. Mr. Ghosh handed me a pamphlet highlighting some of their latest progress.

Bandhan one of the world’s largest AND fastest growing microfinance institutions. This is usually an oxymoron as most the larger microfinance organizations are growing very slowly. Here are a few of their stats: over 750,000 clients, over 400 branches, over $120M disbursed, over 2000 staff. And they are growing at something like 30,000+ clients per month!! Five years ago they didn’t even exist and now they’re serving 750K families or about 3,750,000 people!

But, what I found the most interesting was a study of the impact of microfinance services on their clients by Mr. Ranesh Buswas and Mr. Soumik Ghanta of the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, India, April-June 2007.

Here is a chart of the impact on their clients through 3 loan cycles (each 1 year)


Here are a few of my observations:

  • By the third loan almost all of the women (90%) have access to a savings facility (critical to help with unforeseen or special expenses)
  • 100% have reduced their dependency on moneylenders by the 3rd loan (moneylenders charge at minimum 100% and often 300-500% interest with daily repayment required)
  • 90% have increased their income by the 3rd loan (meaning that they’ve pretty much all figured out how to run a business which provides enough income for them to repay their loan plus interest and have surplus)
  • Many (60%) of them have started to grow their liquid assets by the 3rd loan (owning productive animals are one of the key methods for doing this)
  • Some (30%) are starting to be able to acquire (or buyback) more land by the 3rd loan, but it will take longer for the majority.

What do you observe? [post a comment]

Oh, and a bonus… a short video I made while visiting a group of Bandhan borrowers in September. Look at their beautiful saris!

5 comments »

Posted in bandhan, microfinance, poverty, poverty impact

Remittances top foreign aid

October 31st, 2007

A couple of weeks back at the International Forum on Remittances, a study was released which reported that global foreign remittances in 2006 totaled three times all aid provided by donor nations to developing countries (as reported by OECD). Global remittances totaled more than $300B while donor aid was $104B. Remittances even topped foreign direct investment in developing countries which totaled $167B (reported by the Institute of International Finance).

Remittances are the money transfers that foreign workers in developing countries send home to their family and relatives. Most of the transfers are between $100 and $300 at a time.

Remittances to India topped the list at $24.5B, followed by Mexico at $24.2B; China, $21B and the Philippines and Russia, $13.7B each.

And, guess what is growing the fastest? Your right, remittances!

This tells me that even if foreign does rise, it is likely to become an increasingly smaller contributor to capital transfer to developing countries and can never match the growing impact that migrant workers are having on the shifts in global capital.

How about we encourage easier, more secure and better priced options for people to send money back to their home countries? For many people, an ATM or Paypal or a mobile money transfer option would be a welcome solution.

I first read about this in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Yes, I was in the Philippines last week ;-)

5 comments »

Posted in poverty, remittances