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Look Good, Do Good
This week only, the social entrepreneurs at Sevenly selected Opportunity International as their featured nonprofit, designing t-shirts and a hoodie for sale to benefit our work. They were especially inspired by our work in India, focusing their week-long campaign on our microfinance there, especially health insurance through our microinsurance subsidiary MicroEnsure. After all, our financial services Read more…
Top 5 Highlights from Opportunity’s 2011 in Review
As we take the first steps into 2012, it’s good to see where Opportunity International ventured on the road of 2011. We ran all over the globe and hiked into new territory both literally and figuratively. We celebrated milestones, and went to new heights, for the sake of our clients and the sustainable work of Read more…
Tagged 40th anniversary, 40th anniversary year-end campaign 2011, Africa, Banking on Women, Clients, Devex, Empact, Empact 100, Ending Poverty, Events, Financial services, Future of Entrepreneurship Summit, India, Insight Trip, International Women's Day, Jump for Opportunity, Microensure, Microinsurance, Opportunity International, Poverty, Richard Leftley, Side by Side, sustainable finance award, USA Today, Women, Women's Opportunity Network, Women's Philanthropy, WON, YAO, Young Ambassadors for Opportunity
Cell Phones Deliver Life Insurance
In October 2010, Opportunity International’s microinsurance subsidiary, MicroEnsure, launched a pilot test with the mobile network Tigo Ghana around a new product embedded into the subscriber’s airtime purchases. The more airtime Tigo customers purchase, the more free life insurance they earn for themselves and a second family member. For Tigo, this insurance has helped reduce client churn Read more…
What We’re Reading: “Ten Biggest Positive Africa Stories of 2011,” The New Yorker
“…Yes, there is tragedy in Africa, and you will always find it there, and we must take those tragedies seriously, but there is also extraordinary opportunity. And if you see this continent as the continent of the future, it sort of reframes it. This is a continent that, by 2050, will be the largest and Read more…
Tagged Africa, Arab Spring, Bono, Cell phone banking, DR Congo, elections, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, famine, Ghana, Healthcare, Horn of Africa, Kenya, Liberia, life insurance, M-PESA, Microensure, Microinsurance, mobile phone banking, Nobel Peace Prize, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, The New Yorker, Tigo, what we're reading
Opportunity Participates in the 2011 Global Microcredit Summit
This week, one of the largest microfinance industry conferences in the world launches in Valladolid, Spain. The 15th annual Global Microcredit Summit runs Monday, Nov. 14-Thursday, Nov. 17 and features Her Majesty Queen Sofía of Spain, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, and more than 2,000 delegates from over 100 countries, including Opportunity International‘s Read more…
Tagged BRAC, Ending Poverty, Events, Facebook, Financial services, Fonkoze, Global Microcredit Summit, Grameen, ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth, International Labour Organization, MFI, Microcredit, Microensure, Microfinance, Microfinance Information Exchange, Microinsurance, MIX Market, Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize, Opportunity International, Richard Leftley, Social Media, Spain, Twitter, videos
MicroEnsure’s Richard Leftley Named in Top 40 Under 40 by Devex
Richard Leftley, President & CEO of MicroEnsure, has been named one of London’s top 40 development leaders under 40 by Devex, a social enterprise that offers recruiting and business information services to professionals in international development. Leftley, an expert in microinsurance who has helmed Opportunity’s insurance subsidiary MicroEnsure since 2002, was interviewed by Devex Senior Read more…
Breakout Session: Microinsurance: A Powerful Safety Net
Opportunity’s MicroEnsure, the world’s first microinsurance intermediary, provides protection against the many risks faced by those living in poverty. Today, more than 3.2 million clients can fall back on our crop, loan, health, life and property insurance products in times of hardship or disaster. Who’d have thought that getting up at 8 a.m. on a Read more…
Tagged Microensure, Microfinance, Microinsurance, OIC2011, Opportunity International, Opportunity International Microfinance Conference, Poverty, Richard Leftley, YAO, YAO - San Francisco, Young Ambassadors for Opportunity
Breakout Session: Fighting Poverty with Technology
“There is never an end to the opportunities that are brought by technology; we are excited about what those are.” That’s how Daryl Skoog, senior VP of technology, ended his own introduction, as each of the members of the panel discussion was introducing themselves to the audience. Harry Turner, the panel facilitator and CEO of Read more…
Tagged Cell phone banking, Daryl Skoog, Ending Poverty, Financial services, Geoffrey Thige, Global Microfinance Operations, Harry Turner, Microensure, OIC2011, Opportunity International, Opportunity International Microfinance Conference, Opportunity Kenya, Poverty, Richard Leftley, Robert Westcott, Technology
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
