Every start-up from the first cohort of the Financial Inclusion Lab offers a distinguished product or set of services that suit the needs of LMI segments. With MSC’s technical assistance, these start-ups have improvised their offerings and successfully strengthened their businesses. The start-ups are progressing well and have been receiving accolades across dimensions for their distinguished work. Stay tuned for more updates!
Creative economies as a gateway to pro-poor tourism in India
The paper discusses the role that creative economies can play in transforming the tourist regions as engines of youth employment growth and upskilling. The paper details out the strategies that can be employed to rejuvenate the creative economies such that they can retain the existing youth as well as attract others.
Boost to financial inclusion initiatives for LMI segments in India
The FI Lab was set up to support early-stage fintech start-ups. The Lab will help the start-ups understand the LMI segment better to build stronger products and businesses. Eleven start-ups were selected after an extensive process of screening and evaluation. We have captured the lessons from the first cohort in a series of blog posts that discusses the unique offerings and challenges of each start-up.
Access to finance for enterprises (including agriculture sector businesses) in Kenya
This video gives highlights on access to finance to enterprises in Kenya and reveals that there is a huge gap for financing. Similarly, there are huge opportunities that financial players can exploit towards bridging this gap. Watch to learn more
Supporting the Government of India to digitize
Rajiv Srivastava, UP Mandi Parishad, explains how MSC has worked hard to implement the eNAM program in Kannauj APMC successfully. MSC’s effective implementation of the program will benefit both farmers and traders. Dr. Pawan Bakhshi, India Lead, Financial Services for the Poor at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation speaks on the changes MSC’s services have brought about in social welfare payments to the poor in India and in solving the challenges of making the Indian government’s DBT program operational.
eNAM platform to digitize the marketing of agricultural produce in India
The Government of India launched the Electronic National Agriculture Market or eNAM platform to enable trading of primary agricultural produce. The platform connects 585 agricultural markets (or APMCs) through an online platform. MSC has been supporting the central and the provincial governments in the design, policy reforms, and implementation of the eNAM program.
MSC undertook an extensive study of physical and electronic agricultural markets across multiple states and markets. MSC supported the government in the state of Uttar Pradesh to improve the functioning of eNAM across several APMCs. We worked with the government to implement our recommendations and to support operational and policy-level changes in the state.
MSC also created a blueprint to improve the design and implementation of electronic agricultural markets across India. Many of the design improvements were accepted and implemented. From 2016 to 2018, over 10 million farmers and 150,000 traders or commission agents had registered on the eNAM platform across India. The cumulative volume of electronic trade on eNAM had crossed about INR 482 billion (USD 6.5 billion) by September 2018.