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> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Associate, CFI
In addition to its other benefits, microfinance can be a vehicle for promoting environmentally sustainable development. Small-scale finance, when bundled with other services, can improve access to clean energy for people at the base of the pyramid, and can assist them to protect ecosystems, conserve biodiversity, and adapt to climate change. And for the poor, climate change mitigation and adaptation is critical. Although poor people have contributed the least to climate change, according to the United Nations, they will suffer its effects in the biggest way. Though still a burgeoning area, a number of microfinance institutions are effectively pairing microfinance and environmental action, including Kompanion Financial Group in Kyrgyzstan, ESAF Microfinance in India, and XacBank in Mongolia. A few weeks ago at European Microfinance Week (EMW) these three institutions were acknowledged for their work in this area, with Kompanion winning the 5th European Microfinance and Environment Award, and ESAF and XacBank placing as runner-ups.
The Microfinance and Environment Award, launched in 2005, recognizes institutions committed to serving the poor while contributing to environmental sustainability. It’s jointly organized by the Development Cooperation Directorate, the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP), and the Inclusive Finance Network Luxembourg in collaboration with the European Investment Bank. Below is a snapshot of the environmental efforts of the three institutions, featuring the videos that were shown at EMW.
> Posted by Mary Hansen, Organizational Development and Training Associate, Accion
842 million people struggle through the hunger games yearly. The games begin as food and money run low sometime before harvest and last until the first ripe crops. This is better known as los meses flacos, the thin months, in Latin America. Or as I knew it in East Africa, wanjala in Swahili and nyengo yonjala in Chichewa (the hunger season). These recurring hunger games are not state sponsored and the participants do not fight each other to the death, but they do fight individuals, families, or communities to survive. Every day, 25,000 people around the world die from hunger-related causes, including 16,000 children. That’s one child every five seconds.
The regions deeply affected by hunger depend heavily on smallholder farming. Around 75 percent of the world’s poor are smallholder farmers. Half of the world’s undernourished people, including three-quarters of Africa’s malnourished children and the majority of those living in absolute poverty live on small farms.
Many of these farmers face the struggle of the hungry season. To understand their situation, consider how you would budget if you were only paid a few times a year.
Personally, I struggle with budgeting when paid twice a month. When I was in the Peace Corps in Malawi and was paid monthly, I struggled even more. Yet, smallholder farmers often receive payment only during harvest, or twice a year. I still do not fully understand how families survive with this income structure, even though I lived in a rural town in Malawi for two years. Yet, this is the reality for many of the 2.5 billion people that depend on smallholder agriculture for their livelihoods.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Assistant, CFI
A community health worker in Kenya trained by Pathfinder International, using a mobile phone to collect client data. Photo by Sala Lewis.
Each year billions of dollars in cash payments are distributed by development organizations to individuals in need. Across sectors including agriculture, health, and emergency relief, cash payments are dispersed with the intent of imparting a lasting impact on their recipients. As we’ve discussed in this space previously, dealing with cash instead of electronic payments brings risks and inefficiencies to the parties involved, both development organizations and their payments recipients, too, who are likely to have a lot at stake.
Visa, in partnership with NetHope, a consortium of more than 40 humanitarian organizations, is addressing this opportunity to improve development organizations’ payments systems through the Visa Innovation Grants Program, a new initiative providing funding to development organizations for the modernizing of their payments systems. A few weeks ago the program selected the five winning organizations, who will each receive $US 100,000 for their projects. Representing a breadth of sectors, the five organizations are Agribusiness Systems International (ASI), Freedom from Hunger, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Mercy Corps, and Pathfinder International.
The payments system projects of ASI and Mercy Corps focus on developing mobile money services for farmers and other actors in agriculture value chains. ASI is working with rice farmers in Ghana, and Mercy Corps with smallholder farmers in Indonesia. The payments systems allow farmers to receive timely and secure payments from agricultural cooperatives electronically, rather than by traveling to pick up cash, which requires expending resources, including time that could otherwise be spent tending the farm.
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