The pandemic has raised the profile of digital financial services, which have enabled amazingly rapid distribution of social support funds and may provide a path forward for delivering financial services safely and at scale. But there are important questions left to consider about the roll-out and ultimate impact of DFS. This edition of faiVLive brought together expert practitioners and researchers to address these questions, ranging from the impact of DFS on MFIs to digital security.
Read MoreWeek of June 16th, 2020
Editor's Note: As with many others, I've found it very difficult figuring out what to say in this moment. Below I give it my best effort. Here, a couple of housekeeping notes:
The next faiVLive on hard questions about the evolution of digital financial services will be on June 26th at 9am Eastern. I'll be joined by Tamara Cook, Salah Goss, Moonmoon Shehrin, Greg Chen and Graham Wright. Register here.
FAI Visiting Fellow Beth Rhyne has a new post about the responsibility of DFIs to step up to the existential crisis for microfinance.
It's Compass survey time again! Fill out the e-MFPs survey, which is focused on COVID-19 response and recovery.
—Tim Ogden
Week of May 29th, 2020
Editor's Note: Let's kick-off with a couple of public service announcements: The Household Finance Research Initiative at Dvara Research has a call for research proposals on household finance in India that is due on the 31st. The "tracks" are applied data science and primary research and there are 10 total grants available. Apply!
In the US, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, the Gates Foundation and the Walmart Foundation also have a new RFP for research projects focused on "stabilizing workers during the Covid-19 crisis and offer pathways for longer-term economic security and mobility." For the first time ever, the BREAD conference on Development Economics will be live streamed. It's today and tomorrow at 11am Eastern. Here's the link for today, and the one for tomorrow. This morning Emma Riley will be presenting her work on providing microcredit to women business owners via mobile money accounts; others are on "Rationing the Commons" and "Manipulation Proof Machine Learning." Tomorrow, Morgan Hardy will present her paper with Gisella Kagy and Lena Song on bargaining behavior among microentrepreneurs, followed by papers on state capacity and taxation; and inequality and place-based policy.
—Tim Ogden
Read MoreWeek of May 11th, 2020
Editor's Note: I recently learned that my paper with Michael Clemens (that one I referred to last week that took 5 years from submission to publication) on rethinking migration from the perspective of household finance is among the top 10% of downloads at Development Policy Review so if you're eager to read something non-pandemic check it out. Apparently at least a few other people have done so. And the paper on what is happening with microcredit in Pakistan is now officially published.
–Tim Ogden
Read MoreWeek of April 27, 2020
Editor's Note: In the last faiV I noted that the question "How are you?" didn't seem like it could survive the pandemic. Here's an article from The Atlantic on some alternatives. But my favorite alternative so far is a different answer rather than question. Hans Dieter Seibel passed on that his colleague Marion Levy Jr. has a standard response to "How are you?" that seems especially apposite now: "Terrible. But I'm glad you asked."
Read MoreMicrofinance and COVID-19
This edition of faiVLive brought together expert practitioners and researchers to discuss how we should be thinking about the impact of COVID-19 and pandemic control policies on poor households in developing countries, what policy interventions are plausible and possible, what role does microfinance have to play, and what needs to happen to enable the global microfinance industry to be useful now and six months from now.
Read MoreWeek of April 10th, 2020 (faiVLive)
This week’s edition of the faiV was a faiVLive — a webinar featuring a panel of experts discussing the impact of Covid-19 on MFI clients and other poor households.
About the Webinar
This edition of faiVLive brings together expert practitioners and researchers to discuss how we should be thinking about the impact of COVID-19 and pandemic control policies on poor households in developing countries, what policy interventions are plausible and possible, what role does microfinance have to play, and what needs to happen to enable the global microfinance industry to be useful now and six months from now.
Featuring
Shameran Abed, Senior Director of BRAC’s microfinance and ultrapoor graduation schemes
Greta Bull, CEO of CGAP and a director at the World Bank Group
Deborah Burand, Professor of Clinical Law at NYU and the Co-Director of the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship
Neville Crawley, CEO at Kiva
Jonathan Morduch, Professor of Public Policy and Economics at NYU-Wagner, and a founder and Executive Director of the Financial Access Initiative
Stuart Rutherford, Leader of the Hrishipara Financial Diaries; founder and Chairman of Bangladeshi financial services co-operative SafeSave
Moderator
Timothy Ogden, Managing Director of the NYU Financial Access Initiative
Support
This faiVLive is part of the Household Financial Security Insight Community, supported by the Mastercard Impact fund, and in collaboration with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.
Week of April 3, 2020
Editor's Note: The only two predictions I feel I confident in making right now are that a) we will find some new phrase for opening a conversation other than "How are you?" or at least some new way to answer the question, and b) that the trend of putting webcams on the bottom of a laptop screen is over. Thanks to all of you who reached out in reaction to the abbreviated version of the faiV last week focused on my concerns about the future of microfinance in the US and globally. Please keep sending information and thoughts my way.
Read MoreWeek of March 23, 2020
Editor’s Note: What a difference a month makes. I've started drafting a new edition of the faiV several times over the last six weeks, but events kept overwhelming the moment and I put it off again. Now it seems that events have overwhelmed everything. And so, here is a special edition of the faiV with few links and only two thoughts around one central theme: the existential crisis for microfinance globally.
Read MoreThe Truth about (SME) Training
This edition of the faiVLive featured Tim Ogden, Managing Director of the Financial Access Initiative at NYU shared the latest insights on SME business training programs, with guest speaker David McKenzie, Lead Economist in the Development Research Group, Finance and Private Sector Development Unit at the World Bank. Tim and David discussed what we know about small business performance and productivity, the importance of management, and training impact evaluations--all essential for innovating SME training programs.
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