Region: Africa

Parametric insurance solutions can offer smallholder farmers in developing countries an accessible, reliable, and affordable way to protect themselves. A multi-stakeholder approach is needed to make these solutions work for smallholder farmers, supported by catalytic capital for their development and scale-up.

This blog introduces the Women Business Diaries research in Bangladesh and explains how this research will unpack a 360-degree view of women business owners.

Developing countries often prioritize the formalization of enterprises in their MSME development policies. The benefits of formalization include increased access to credit, higher productivity, and better social protection, while governments gain from a higher tax base. However, informality continues to persist despite these apparent benefits. This blog stresses on the need to modulate our approach to formalization of the informal economy and explores three principles on how the digital economy can enable this process.

The rapid digitization of work in the informal economy offers an opportunity to increase women’s participation in the labor force. However, women continue to grapple with a disproportionate burden of unpaid work at home. Thus, any tangible increase in women’s participation in the labor market will call for adequate social protections that reduce this burden. This blog discusses the importance of reimagining the social protection architecture for the digital economy.

In 2022, MSC focused on several sectors, including MSMEs, agriculture, microfinance, gender, youth, climate change, and digital finance. Most of our work revolved around using digital payments to arm people from the low- and moderate-income (LMI) segment and build their resilience. We are delighted to reshare our most-read blogs in 2022.

Timestamps of the webinar conducted on 8th December, 2022, on the topic “Financial Diaries research and it’s future”. See the time stamps below for a better viewing experience.