News and Announcements
Aishwarya Ratan named in list of 35 Innovators under 35
Aishwarya Ratan, Director of the Microsavings & Payments Innovation Initiative at IPA and Yale, has been named one of 35 Innovators under 35 by MIT Technology Review. Before coming to New Haven, Aishwarya developed a technology for converting paper records into digital in realtime for microcredit co-ops, whilst working at Microsoft Research India.Microfinance: Growing Up?
Africa’s MFI performance, despite low population density and high operating costs, is competitive and it leads the world in savings mobilisations, according to the African Development Bank.
Yet access to formal finance is still low, says Beniamino Savonitto, project director at Innovations for Poverty Action, an NGO. The excluded seek financial supports from family, friends or curb markets.
Higher Tax Revenue Needed to Aid Poor in India, Duflo Says
Government programs funded by higher tax revenue are needed in developing countries such as India to open up opportunities for the poor, economist Esther Duflo said in a paper presented at the Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Ten Best Finance Books
The Independent newspaper names Poor Economics one of its Ten Best Finance Books.
Request for Proposals - Financial Products Innovation Fund
Aug 16/11 | Announcement |
The US Household Finance Initiative (USHFI) at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is pleased to announce a Request for Proposals for financial institutions to collaborate with IPA as part of its Financial Products Innovation Fund. USHFI is seeking to collaborate with financial institutions on the development and beta testing of new financial products and product features that apply insights from behavioral economics to help low-income households achieve financial resiliency. Awardees will work closely with USHFI and behavioral economists Drs. Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman to design and test product prototypes. We invite proposals from any and all segments of retail and wholesale financial service provision, either nonprofit or for-profit. The Financial Products Innovation Fund is generously supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Proposals should be emailed to Rebecca Rouse (rrouse@poverty-action.org) by 5:00pm EST on October 31, 2011. Please see the full Request for Proposals [HERE] and application form [HERE] for details.
2010 Global NGO Deworming Directory
Aug 15/11 | Announcement |
Any NGOs involved in deworming activities are invited to submit to the 2010 Global NGO Deworming Inventory.
What is the Global NGO Deworming Inventory?
The Global NGO Deworming Inventory was launched in June of 2010 with the explicit purpose of assessing the breadth and scope of NGO deworming activities and their treatment achievements worldwide. The Inventory collates data on NGO deworming activities and presents an overview of who is deworming where, and how many children are being treated. Data from the Inventory are then shared with the WHO Preventive Chemotherapy (PCT) Databank to compile NGO deworming data with data from Ministries of Health and measure collective progress towards the World Health Assembly (WHA) target of treating 75% of school age children at risk of infection with intestinal worms.
Results from the 2009 Inventory
Twenty-four NGOs participated in the 2009 Deworming Inventory and reported about 62.8 million treatments (school-age children treated with a deworming drug), of which 20.8 million were unique treatments not previously captured in the WHO databank. These numbers indicate that there is a notable amount of deworming conducted by NGOs that is not recognized at the global level and therefore not reflected in measurements of global progress towards reaching the WHA target. Visit the 2009 Inventory Reports page for treatment reports by country, organization, and for a full report on the 2009 Inventory results.
You are Invited to Participate
The 2010 Deworming Inventory strives to continue highlighting the achievements of NGO deworming programs and ensure that your efforts are accounted for at the global level. We thank all organizations that participated in last year's Inventory and extend the invitation to all organizations with deworming programs to participate in the 2010 Deworming Inventory.
How to participate
Please download the 2010 Treatment Reporting Form, complete the requested items to describe your deworming program and achievements, and submit the completed form to info@deworminginventory.org. Alternatively, if you have your own deworming program report, please send the report toinfo@deworminginventory.org.
What Happens to the Data Submitted
As treatment data are collected, country-level aggregated reports will be developed and posted on the Highlighted Reports page of the Inventory website.
For more information about the Inventory, please visit the Inventory website. For any concerns or clarifications, please email: info@deworminginventory.org.Esther Duflo Bribes India's Poor To Health
Rajasthan is India's desert state, an often inhospitable place where per capita income averages around $1.77 per day. Poverty like that--understanding it and imagining ways to fix it--is what Esther Duflo lives for.
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