As discussed in previous posts, most people engaged in farms and livelihood activities view them as a way to get by rather than get ahead. Lacking scale, they are inefficient. Lacking access to information and markets, they do not have the power to extract profit from market transactions. They pay more for their inputs (including…
The original rationale for expanding financial inclusion was that access to formal financial services enables low-income self-employed entrepreneurs and farmers to take advantage of market opportunities. Doing so was supposed to make it possible for them to expand their businesses, increasing their own incomes and creating employment for others. Yet in fact the architects of…
ACCESS Advisory started 11 years ago today. From a team of four in a one-room office in Manila, we have expanded to a team of more than 20 in seven countries across the Asia-Pacific region. Over the years, we have worked with hundreds of financial service providers to strengthen their organizational capacity and reached hundreds…
Last week we wrote about CGAP’s new “impact narrative for financial inclusion”, which no longer makes entrepreneurship and business development the primary rationale for expanding access to financial services. This week, we explore why they made such a dramatic change. CGAP’s change of heart may have been inevitable. While the various technologies that have been…
ACCESS Advisory is re-launching its blog! Join us here for discussions about financial inclusion, organization development, and farm and enterprise development. We begin by noting that CGAP recently published a new “impact narrative for financial inclusion”. This new vision identifies two sets of outcomes for low-income households who use financial services. The first is “resilience”––…
A tractor-rental app, an app providing information on markets, prices, weather, and other topics of importance to farmers, and an app linking agri-producers to financial service providers were some of digital technologies featured in the forum “Modernizing Myanmar’s Agriculture through Innovation” held on March 18, 2019. Organized by the US Agency for International Development (USAID),…
It has long been recognized that the money remitted by migrants is used to supplement the receiving family’s income and is therefore largely spent on consumption. To the extent that migrant families “invest”, the main uses are for housing (renovating the existing home or purchasing a house and lot) and for their children’s education. Only…
ACCESS opened its doors 10 years ago today, on August 4, 2008. At the time, it was a small team and a very small office. Today we are more than 20 professionals in 6 countries. We thank our partners for their continuous support over the past decade. We could not have come this far without…
Member-based organizations like cooperatives are gradually growing in Myanmar. In 2017, two cooperatives in Kayin State were formed as a result of a project funded by the European Union (EU). This initiative was followed by a project funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in another township of Kayin State. The cooperative formation…
If microfinance practitioners expect financial services to have an impact on incomes –– and a survey of BWTP members suggests this is the case –– then there is sufficient evidence that what the industry is doing now is not working (enough). Yet the industry’s priority is heavily weighted toward more of the same –– increasing…
