While gender norms affect financial inclusion from the demand side, how financial service providers (FSPs) respond to those norms has a dramatic impact on women’s inclusion. There are two main factors on the supply side that negatively affect how FSPs serve women. The first is that FSPs do not invest enough in serving women. Many…
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),…
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…
Drawing on the experience of practitioners in the Pacific, this document provides and overview of client and credit risks, along with mitigation strategies and policies that financial services providers may wish to consider. Please use this publication as an overview to prompt further investigation, rather than a comprehensive manual that will limit risk. Read More
Description, learning objectives, and key contents for all ACCESS training courses and workshops. Read More
Monday will be the culmination of a development project in Kayin State, Myanmar. A conference will showcase the results of the three-year project – a registered cooperative with savings and lending service as well as an e-money service, and an enterprise and agri-business enhancement component for the borrowing members. In 2014, the project started six…
The Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring (QSEM) is a study conducted annually by Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT), a multi-donor platform, to look at the changes resulting from the development interventions in various parts of Myanmar. The Round 4 of the QSEM conducted from March to May 2014 involving 1,474 respondents was recently…
An emerging economic order The ASEAN economic integration scheduled to be fully implemented in 2015 will have great impact on the people of the region. Designed to be a common production and marketing unit, goods and services will flow freely among its member-countries and will trigger a survival-of-the-fittest mode for businesses in the region. As…
What would you do if there are signs showing that your industry is moving towards sunset? It was met with mixed feelings by participants to the strategic planning workshop for microfinance institutions. The Credit Support Fund (CSF), a wholesale lending facility under the Vietnam Women’s Union (VMU) organized a training-workshop on strategic planning as part…
One of the criteria in social performance management (SPM) is the social responsibility of the microfinance institution to its staff. MFIs cannot just be focusing on its social mandate without taking into consideration the plight of its staff. The main assumptions are, on the one side, staff that enjoys working with an institution will have…
