by JP Kloninger, Regional Director for the Americas
At Whole Planet Foundation, we hold that microfinance is not a “silver bullet,” but an important component in a series of factors which can permanently lift people, families, and communities out of poverty. Additionally, because people near the base of the economic pyramid often rely on subsistence farming or basic food trade for their livelihood, significant resources have gone into supporting smallholder agriculture in the developing world.
In today’s highly competitive and polarized environment, any movement or cause needs energetic and effective leaders. This is especially true in the social sector, which is chronically understaffed and undercapitalized. Therefore, truly successful and sustainable leaders need to combine the skills and attributes of both leadership and management. They require a vision as well as the ability to execute it.
Every quarter Whole Planet Foundation aggregates field metrics from our microfinance partners who are disbursing and collecting microcredit loans to people living in poverty.
To enable their efforts to do good for others, charities also need to manage the commercial, structural and strategic aspects of their organisation well. For that, they need an expertise they may not necessarily have among staff members.
That’s why five UK-based charities, including the British Red Cross and Alzheimer’s Society, recently joined over 70 Banking staff at a workshop designed to provide each organisation with the advisory support and strategic guidance needed to face their unique challenges.
Secure property rights provide a foundation for sustainable natural resource management, access to water resources, economic growth, and improved food security
Press Release
PASADENA, Calif., August 24, 2018 /3BL Media/ - Tetra Tech, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTEK) announced today that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded the Company a $650 million, multiple-award contract to develop innovative solutions to address land rights challenges around the world.
Back in 2007, when Matt and Catherine O’Hayer started pasture-raising hens, their thoughts were never just on the birds in their care, but in using whatever means at their disposal to affect lasting change. Directly, that meant challenging long-held assumptions in the food business – that sustainable could not mean scalable, and vice versa. That challenged Matt to pioneer an entirely new on-shelf category in the egg set – pasture-raised – and disrupt an industry that had become moribund and commoditized.
In Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms’ new book, New Power: How Power Works in our Hyperconnected World and How to Make it Work for You, the authors define “old power” like a currency (held by a few) and “new power” like a current (open, participatory and peer-driven).
To get a good job and earn a good salary: stay in school, go to college, and get a degree. So goes the conventional wisdom, and the research bears this out. Countless studies have shown that individuals with college degrees will earn more money over the course of their careers than those without a degree.
But the numbers also show that for many, the degree comes with a mountain of student loan debt that will take a good portion of their careers to pay off.
As part of Whole Planet Foundation’s annual due diligence visits to our microfinance partners around the globe, we observe the presence or absence of “responsible finance indicators” which shed light on how our partners are serving the world’s poorest people. Many of our microfinance partners use or develop strategies to inform their work, ensuring they are reaching their target populations with the services they need most.
