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Social entrepreneurship begins at home: how one incubator is generating social change in Madagascar while supporting start-ups

Alexandre Laure's picture
Also available in: Français
Small group event at Incubons branch office

Founded in January 2016, INCUBONS provides access to co-working spaces and free services to social enterprises and start-ups including intensive technical assistance, mentoring and 24/7 coaching. The incubator has an extensive outreach program, including events, debates and concerts, as well as networking opportunities to connect their incubees (10 companies a year) to each other and to potential partners and investors. INCUBONS also provides pre-incubation counters where people can present their ideas and projects are diagnosed free-of-charge and then referred to affordable training courses.

Can Social Enterprises improve the agriculture value chain for farmers

Elaine Tinsley's picture
E-soko provides mobile farming tips, pricing and weather alerts to subscribers at a low monthly fee. The photo captures the crop performance difference between an E-soko user (left) and non- E-soko farmer (right) in Kenya. 
Photographer: Elaine Tinsley, World Bank


What are the key pain points smallholder farmers face? Gaps across the agriculture value chain—lack of access to affordable financial products, limited knowledge of high-quality inputs, low usage of technology and market data, and poor market links. Social enterprises (SEs) in the agriculture sector are successfully closing these gaps, believing that the cost of their services or products will be recuperated by the benefits and income gains that smallholders will achieve.
 
For example, SEs implement innovative solutions through information and communications technology (ICT) platforms. Esoko’s text alerts on weather conditions and crop market prices saves smallholders in Ghana both time and money. Shamba Shape Up is a “makeover” style farming reality show that gives advice on improving farms and increasing yields to Kenyan farmers. Digital Green recruits local, established farmers to share their farming techniques—from pest-control to seed treatment—in over 3,500 videos for peer smallholders in Africa and India.

How Technology Centers can help clients meet the challenges of Industry 4.0

Justin Hill's picture

The Picard leather goods factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh produces bags, purses and wallets that are sold in upmarket stores throughout the developed world under various well-known brand names, and in their own chain of stores in Germany.  The factory is clean, efficient and goods are produced under all the relevant international standards.  

Picard leather factory
But Picard are a rarity, and most Bangladeshi manufacturing looks just like it did 50 years ago.  They produce cheap goods for the local market, but are a huge distance from producing at global standards.  Unfortunately, this is also the case with most manufacturers in emerging economies. And all manufacturing is being changed by a range of new technologies known as Industry 4.0, with manufacturing becoming more global, more automated, more highly skilled, more infused with technology and more integrated with services. Whole manufacturing sectors, but in particular Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) face real challenges if they are to adapt rather than be left behind. 

From spreadsheets to suptech for financial sector market conduct supervision

Douglas Randall's picture

From Spreadsheets to Suptech for Financial Sector Market Conduct Supervision

Market conduct supervisors in the financial sector have a tough job. And it’s getting tougher.  

Their core work involves collecting data from disparate sources and undertaking complex analyses to identify and assess risks. They must also determine compliance with rules that are often principles-based. For example, what do complaints data, consumer agreements and marketing materials indicate about whether a financial service provider is treating its customers fairly?

InsureTech for Development

Peter Wrede's picture

Ventures that promise to make insurance more fun with technology attract considerable attention and funding. In mature markets, that is. More than half of the $2.3 billion InsureTech funding in 2017 went to the US and the UK, where the average person spends more than $5,000 on insurance every year (that includes newborns). In a country like Bangladesh, by comparison, insurance premium per capita is $8, and this statistic fails to show that most people have no insurance at all, so that insurable events such as accidents end the progress out of poverty for too many. The obstacles that prevent these people from including insurance in their risk management toolkit are surprisingly similar to the obstacles that InsureTech wants to remove to better serve American Millennials. They include lack of trust in insurance companies and lack of understanding of insurance, but also the frustration caused by annoying processes (think filling long forms and waiting for mailed responses) and products that don’t fit. 

But there’s an app for that.

Unlocking Competitiveness: Why Invest in Rural Vietnam?

Christine Qiang's picture
For investors seeking opportunities in Vietnam, the rural province of Dong Thap may not be the first location that comes to mind. Located in the southwest corner of Vietnam, Dong Thap is remote – the nearest airport is a three-hour drive. Road infrastructure is relatively poor, and until recently was complicated by deficient bridges over the Mekong River. It was also known for delayed customs processes that could disrupt supply chains.
 

Why Do Foreign Investors’ Attitudes toward Women Matter?

Heba Shams's picture
Gender equality is one of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) that calls for ensuring women’s full participation in political, economic and public life as a target. Gender inequality is still a key development issue. The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report 2017 found a gender gap of 42% when it came to labor force participation and earned income. Unrealized Potential, a May 2018 publication of the World Bank Group, puts a staggering figure to the cost of this inequality in earnings - $160.2 trillion globally, or $23,620 per capita.
Kuralay Aitzhanova, Dispatcher Manager at the Energy Transmission Control Center of KEGOK. Kazakhstan. Photo: Shynar Jetpissova / World Bank

Making marble from bottles: plastic waste’s second life in Kenya

Justine White's picture
It is estimated that every day Nairobi generates 3,000 tons of waste; 12% is plastic. At the same time, the demand for new houses is growing at a rate of 600 per day. Innovative climate technologies can offer solutions that tackle both the challenges of plastic recycling and the increasing housing demand. But what is an effective approach to introducing technologies that can impact a critical number of companies in the value chain?
 
“From plastic waste to building materials,” a partnership supported by the World Bank Group gathering six private sector frontrunners in Kenya, is testing exactly this.
From plastic to marble. Photo © Better Future Factories
From plastic to marble. Photo © Better Future Factory

De-risking and remittances: the myth of the “underlying transaction” debunked

Marco Nicoli's picture
Also available in: Español | Français
Societé Genérale Mauritanie bank branch in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
Societé Genérale Mauritanie bank branch in Nouakchott, Mauritania. ©️ Arne Hoel

This Saturday, June 16, we celebrate International Day of Family Remittances to recognize “the significant financial contribution migrant workers make to the wellbeing of their families back home and to the sustainable development of their countries of origin.”

Which is why it is the perfect time to talk about a trend facing remittance service providers who migrants rely on to transfer their money across borders and back home.
In recent years, the international remittance services industry has been subject to the so-called “de-risking” phenomenon. Banks believe that anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations and enforcement practices have made serving money transfer operators (MTOs) too risky from a legal and reputational perspective. For banks, the profit of serving MTOs is not considered sufficient to justify the level of effort required to manage these increased risks.
 

Initial findings from the implementation of the 'Practical Guide for Measuring Retail Payment Costs'

Holti Banka's picture

MoMo Tap in Côte d'Ivoire
In November 2016, we published the “Practical Guide for Measuring Retail Payment Costs”, an innovative methodology that can be customized to country needs and circumstances, without losing the international comparative dimension.

The guide enables countries to measure the costs associated with retail payment instruments, based on survey data, for the payment end users, payment service/infrastructure providers, and the total economy. The guide also enables countries to derive projected savings in shifting from the more costly to the less costly payment instruments.
 

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