Monthly Sector Scan

Key Happenings, Insights, Reports,
and Latest Events carefully selected for you!

January 2023

Dear Partner,

Wish you a very Happy New Year 2023!

This month, we are celebrating the first anniversary our inclusive growth sector scan. Since January 2022, we have tried to serve you every month with handpicked blogs, articles, sector news, reports, and events. Hope you enjoy reading them as much as we do while curating the monthly inclusive growth sector scans.

In this edition, you will find 21 blogs, articles, and sector news from 5 different sectors – clean cookstoves, climate action, financial services, sustainable agriculture, and women empowerment.

Additionally, you can download three insightful reports from this edition. Accion in its report Green Inclusive Finance presents a framework for understanding how financial services can help low-income and vulnerable people respond to climate change. Business Fights Poverty in its magazine The Poverty Tsunami outlines how businesses can support the lives, livelihoods, and access to learning of the most vulnerable people and communities amidst the vulnerabilities of COVID, conflict and climate change. Microsave Consulting and CGAP consolidates good practices and insights around service providers, female agents, and customers in the report The role of mobile money providers and their agents in protecting customers’ data.

Do not forget to mark your calendars for the upcoming events by AHL Venture Partners and Climate Asia. You can find the details below.

For any suggestions or feedback, do not hesitate to write us at dialogue@re-emergingworld.com.

Best Regards,

Team Re-emerging World

New Reports Launched

Read and get inspired from the latest Sector Reports

Green Inclusive Finance: A Framework for Understanding How Financial Services Can Help Low-Income and Vulnerable People Respond to Climate Change

- Accion

The report presents a framework for understanding how financial services can help low-income and vulnerable people respond to climate change

Download Report

The Poverty Tsunami

- Business Fights Poverty

The report outlines how businesses can support the lives, livelihoods, and access to learning of the most vulnerable people and communities amidst the vulnerabilities of COVID, conflict and climate change

Download Report

The role of mobile money providers and their agents in protecting customers’ data

- Microsave Consulting, CGAP

The report consolidates good practices of responsible agents and providers in protecting customer data, focusing on female agents and female customers and identifies the factors that enable agents to manage customers’ data responsibly

Download Report

Sector News

Clean Cookstoves

The Energy Crisis No One is Talking About: Cooking

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has helped spark energy crises around the world. One of the most under-appreciated of these crises is taking place far from the conflict zone – in emerging economies across Africa and Asia, where millions of people are being pushed back into using firewood for cooking due to the rising costs of fuel. ....

A geospatial approach to understanding clean cooking challenges in sub-Saharan Africa

Universal clean cooking is a key target under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7, with implications for several other SDGs, such as good health, gender equality and climate.....

Climate Action

The Unrecognised Intersections Between Climate Change and Modern Slavery

How climate change and modern slavery intersect, and why this intersection must be recognised by governments and businesses. The world cannot properly tackle climate change without including efforts to end modern slavery.....

COP27: A Historic But Insufficient Move Towards Climate Justice

For two weeks in November colleagues from Practical Action have been in Sharm El-Sheikh at the UN climate change conference, COP27.....

Why Businesses Must Focus on Putting People at the Heart of Climate Action Strategies

We’ve heard many pledges by businesses and governments to go further, create real and lasting change in cocoa supply chains, and ensure a better future for farming communities and our climate. However, turning those promises into action remains a challenge.....

Financial Services

Access, Understanding and Trust: Breaking Down the Barriers to Women’s Participation in India’s Digital Finance Revolution

The digital gender divide has long occupied international development headlines, as gaps remain between men and women in both access to and usage of digital technologies in many emerging economies. India is no exception....

How needs-based climate insurance can help communities in the Pacific

When tropical cyclone Gita tore through Tonga in February 2018, not even the safest buildings in the capital city, Nuku’alofa were spared.....

How are Mobile Money Agents Protecting Customers’ Data in Uganda?

The blog presents findings from a research study commissioned by CGAP in partnership with MicroSave Consulting (MSC). The research intends to identify good practices of responsible agents in safeguarding their customers’ data. It also sheds light on the role of providers in promoting these practices in Uganda. The study also examines how Uganda’s Data Privacy & Protection Act has helped strengthen providers’ data protection practices.....

Adopting a segmentation approach to serve enterprises in Kenya: Insights from the FinAccess Household Survey 2021

We used the FinAccess data to develop a composite score-based index. This index helped us segment these MSMEs based on their sophistication levels to identify their business needs and growth opportunities and maximize their business sophistication levels. In this blog, we discuss our findings from this segmentation exercise.....

How women entrepreneurs are growing their small businesses using digitally enabled financial tools

Large sunflowers and vivid roses line the sidewalk in front of Paulina’s storefront in Ambato, Ecuador. “I put them out and children began to pass by and would ask for a rose, so I would give them a bouquet,” she said. Soon, more and more people began purchasing her floral arrangements and her business began to take off.....

Could digital cash transfers help tackle gender-based violence?

Digital payments are more efficient and user-friendly. But what many of us probably didn’t know is that this design choice – like many others – likely also has implications for gender-based violence (GBV) within households ....

Sustainable Agriculture

How Farmer Segmentation Can Strengthen Supply Chains and Better Support Smallholder Farmers

In a new report from the Farmer Income Lab and Business Fights Poverty, we provide more information about Farmer segmentation and how procuring companies and smallholder farmers can benefit from a segmentation approach.....

Climate-Smart Supply Chains: Lessons for COP27 from Fairtrade

Living at the forefront of the climate crisis, farmers and workers in low-income countries are uniquely positioned to address climate challenges. Yet with many struggling to earn a living income or wage....

Leaning into Resilience: Three Ways Small and Growing Agriculture Businesses Have Navigated Global Crises – And How Investors Can Support Them

The past few years have presented challenges to small and growing businesses (SGBs), especially in emerging markets. These businesses have struggled with pandemic-driven logistics and supply chain issues....

How Supporting Women Farmers Can Ease Asia’s Food Security Crisis

Women need to be engaged in designing, implementing, and monitoring climate-smart agriculture. With a food crisis and climate change affecting millions of people in Asia and the Pacific, equipping female farmers with technology, support, and resources, is a win for women and food security overall....

A transformed fertilizer market is needed in response to the food crisis in Africa

One clear message from my dozen meetings last week with African leaders who were in Washington for a summit with the U.S. government was that fertilizer prices are out of reach for most farmers....

Carbon sequestration and trading: How can India ensure reduced footprints and enhanced incomes in agri-sector

India is already an emerging carbon credit producer, and if we play our cards right, we can supplement our farmers’ incomes, restore degraded soils and become a leader in the carbon world....

Women Empowerment

Why the Burden on Business Women to ‘do it all’ Must Stop

Gender norms are stunting women-led enterprises, as revealed in a new report from CARE’s Ignite program. The research confirms that women entrepreneurs worldwide are so bound by gender norms,....

Fewer ‘Heropreneurs,’ More Heroic Women: Grameen Foundation’s New CEO Discusses Her Vision for the Organization – And the Broader Financial Inclusion Sector

My recent announcement that I had assumed the role of CEO at Grameen Foundation was often met with two reactions. They went something like this: “Wow, is Muhammed Yunus your hero, too?” and “Oh, Grameen Foundation — they do microfinance, right?”....

Unleashing Women Entrepreneurs by Challenging Gender Norms: An Innovative Approach to Changing Beliefs Around Household Chores

Globally, women and girls are responsible for three-quarters of unpaid care work. This is due to the belief — still commonly held in many cultures — that a woman’s role in society is to take care of the home, requiring her to take on the majority of household and childcare duties....

Rural women and climate change: The products and services that are expanding earning potential and mitigating risk

Integrating a climate and gender lens into services for rural women could help reduce the gender inequality gap and prevent them from being excluded from climate resilience initiatives....

Join Upcoming Events

Webinars, Virtual Events, Conferences and more

Fund Insights on Gender-Smart Technical Assistance, with Perspectives from Companies & Partners

Hosted by AHL Venture Partners

Date: 18th January,
Time: 6.30pm IST

Virtual Masterclass - Technological Innovation & Climate Change

Hosted by Climate Asia

Date: 18th January,
Time: 5.00pm IST