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“I Have a Dream” for an End to Poverty: Martin Luther King’s March on Washington
Martin Luther King, Jr. led 250,000 people in the “March on Washington” in August 1963. On the national mall, Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. In it, he called for an end to inequality in American society, peaceful reconciliation among races and ethnic groups, and social and economic justice. King said: […W]e Read more…
Tagged civil rights, Crop insurance, economic justice, Education, Ending Poverty, Entrepreneurs, Global Poverty, Health insurance, Hunger, I Have a Dream, justice, Loans, March on Washington, Martin Luther King Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Microfinance, Mission, National holiday, Opportunity International, Poverty, Savings, social justice, Washington D.C., Weather-index crop insurance
Today on World Food Day, there’s Hope for an End to Hunger
Globally, nearly 870 million people are undernourished–about 12% of the world’s population. It’s World Food Day and social media is buzzing with challenging facts and stats about hunger, like the ones in this post. This information is important. There’s no doubt that it’s one of the great injustices that children anywhere go to bed hungry, that Read more…
Tagged Africa, Agricultural finance, Agriculture, Children, Community, Crop insurance, Ending Hunger, Ending Poverty, FAO, Financial services, Food and Agriculture Organization, Food security, Ghana, Global Poverty, IFAD, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Loans, Made for Good, MFI, Microfinance, Microinsurance, Millennium Development Goals, Opportunity International, Poverty, sub-Saharan Africa, Training, Weather-index crop insurance, Women, World Food Day, World Food Programme, world hunger
Do We Know Who These Smallholder Farmers Are? And Do We Care?
Francis Mamati. Leonida Wanyama. Rasoa Wasike. Zipporah Biketi. Roger Thurow, author of The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change, implores us to get to know these farmers–and to support their development–if we are to meet the challenge of doubling food production by 2050 to meet the Read more…
Tagged Africa, Agricultural finance, Agriculture, Chicago, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Children, Clients, Community, Crop insurance, Drought, Ending Hunger, Ending Poverty, Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty, Financial services, Global Food for Thought blog, Hunger, Kenya, Loans, Microfinance, Microinsurance, Opportunity International, Poverty, Roger Thurow, Savings, Smallholder farmer, The Last Hunger Season, Training
Growing Rural Economies through Agricultural Finance in Africa
In the last decade, Opportunity International embarked on an agricultural finance and rural savings program to spur economic activity and provide enduring resources for smallholder farmers and other rural clients in five African countries, including Uganda, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Rwanda. Opportunity’s approach is to help farmers move from subsistence growing to cash crop production Read more…
Tagged Africa, Agricultural finance, Agriculture, Breakout session, coffee farmer, Crop insurance, Ending Poverty, Insurance, John Magnay, Loan Officer, Loans, MFI, Microfinance, OIC2011, Opportunity Ghana, Opportunity International, Opportunity International Microfinance Conference, Opportunity Malawi, opportunity mozambique, Opportunity Rwanda, Opportunity Uganda, Poverty, Savings, Smallholder farmer, Training
Why is Microinsurance a Powerful Safety Net for Clients?
Last week, Opportunity supporters and staff dialed in for a lunchtime conference call with Richard Leftley, the president and CEO of MicroEnsure, Opportunity’s microinsurance subsidiary. Leftley shared background on MicroEnsure’s growth in recent years and then answered callers’ questions on what he envisions for the organization’s future. He detailed how insurance is an indispensable tool Read more…
Tagged Africa, Asia, credit life insurance, Crop insurance, Ending Poverty, Financial services, funeral insurance, Ghana, Health insurance, India, Insight Trip, Insurance, Kilimanjaro, Microensure, Microfinance, Microinsurance, Mobile Phones, OIC2011, Opportunity International Microfinance Conference, Poverty, property insurance, Richard Leftley, Tanzania, Weather-index crop insurance, YAO, Young Ambassadors for Opportunity
Our Prayers for the Millions Affected by the Drought in East Africa
For the past two years, a drought has affected East Africa and has placed more than 10 million people at risk. The lack of rain, especially in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, has caused crops to fail, food prices to rise, and cattle to perish, reducing food sources and food security for the people. Unfortunately, there Read more…
Tagged Africa, Clients, Crisis, Crop insurance, crops, Drought, East Africa, Farmers, Financial services, Food security, harvest, humanitarian, IFAD, Insurance, Intern, international aid, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Kenya, Microensure, Microfinance, Microinsurance, news, Opportunity International, Opportunity Kenya, Poverty, Weather-index crop insurance
What We’re Watching: New Short Film by MicroEnsure on Cashless & Low-Cost Health Insurance in India
The following video was published in a blog post on microensure.com on June 14. MicroEnsure, a subsidiary of Opportunity International, is the world’s first microinsurance intermediary, and it serves people living in poverty with innovative products in crop, loan, health, life and property insurance, offering clients and their families a safety net when an unexpected Read more…
The Christian Science Monitor on Biometrics & Mobile Money at Opportunity Malawi
The Christian Science Monitor today posted an article entitled, “Villages Leapfrog the Grid with Biometrics and Mobile Money,” which lauds these technologies as a way for people at the bottom of the economic pyramid to access financial services and protect themselves in the case of drought and disasters. Today’s story is part of a series Read more…
Tagged Africa, Aleksandr-Alain Kalanda, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, biometric technology, biometrics, Cell phone banking, Cell Phones, Crop insurance, Ending Poverty, Financial services, Fingerprint, funeral insurance, Gates Foundation, Kenya, life insurance, M-banking, M-PESA, Malawi, MFI, Microfinance, Mobile Banking, mobile phone banking, Mobile Phones, OIBM, Opportunity International, Opportunity International Bank of Malawi, Opportunity Malawi, Poverty, South Africa, Technology, The Christian Science Monitor, what we're reading
Leading the Way in Agricultural Microfinance
Seventy percent of the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty (surviving on less than $1.25 per day) live in rural areas. Two years ago, Opportunity International launched the Banking on Africa campaign, a cutting-edge strategy to address rural poverty by expanding access to financial services in rural areas and to develop an agricultural finance Read more…
Tagged Africa, Agricultural finance, Agriculture, Bank Building, Banking on Africa, Community, Crop insurance, Ending Poverty, Farmers, Financial services, Food security, IFAD, IFAD rural poverty report, Loans, market linkages, Markets, MFI, Microfinance, Opportunity International, Poverty, Rural Outreach, Savings, Smallholder farmer, Training, Weather-index crop insurance
