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> Posted by Joshua Goldstein, Principal Director for Economic Citizenship & Disability Inclusion, CFI
I spent the first two hours of the conference in a speed dating exercise called First Connections, where delegates had five minutes to give each other their elevator pitches before moving chairs to meet the next delegate. I recognize that common perceptions of this sort of activity perceive it as always awkward and often a waste of time. In this case, however, my speed dating was at the annual Skoll World Forum, and its value was indicative of the diverse connections needed to solve the complex challenges of my work on disability inclusion, and of those attending the Forum.
The Skoll World Forum, held in Oxford, England, brings together social entrepreneurs, as well as funders, politicians, media, and others who, in Founder Jeff Skoll’s words, are committed to “solving the world’s most pressing problems.” I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in the 11th annual Forum, based on my contribution to a global civil rights struggle to end discrimination against persons with disabilities. My scope of work within this ambitious movement has been developing a set of tools and trainings with my colleagues at the Center for Financial Inclusion to make microfinance institutions and other financial service providers disability inclusive. Along with facilitating the industry’s integration of these tools and trainings, we’re working with in-country stakeholders to develop disability inclusion plans in Ecuador, India, Paraguay, and elsewhere. But achieving disability inclusion in financial services requires more than financial services providers. It also requires the involvement of technology providers, telcos, government officials, educators, community groups, and other actors.
Over 1,000 people from 60 countries gathered to share their ideas and innovations at Skoll. The hope of event organizers is that such a high-level convening of disparate leaders will produce new collaborations and lead to new innovations. And when I say disparate, I mean disparate. I crossed paths with Eli Williamson, Co-Founder of Leave No Veteran Behind, an organization providing educational and employment assistance to veterans facing hardship, as well as Chris Underhill, MBE, Founder of the global mental health organization Basic Needs, and Mabel van Oranje, Chair of Girls Not Brides, which combats child marriage.
> 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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