Publication database

As is the case elsewhere, in Africa, many people depend entirely on food systems for employment and incomes as well. For these reasons, building resilient and sustainable food systems is crucial to ensuring sustainable economies and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063 Goals. However, Africa remains food insecure, accounting for 256 million of the world’s 795 million people suffering from hunger. Against this challenge, this 2021 African Agriculture Status Report (AASR21) provides evidence and insights on the prospects of achieving resilience and sustainability in Africa’s food systems.

‘Two Hands to Heal’ explores how healthcare inclusive businesses have collaborated with governments to respond to the global COVID-19 crisis and beyond. The report discusses challenges when collaborating with governments, identifies lessons learned from health inclusive businesses and offers recommendations to governments and donors on how to foster and improve collaboration.

This report offers practical guidance to last mile distribution (LMD) companies seeking digital solutions that can help them to scale up their activities. It focusses on five key areas that will enable them to better engage with digital solution providers: understanding how LMDs can benefit from digitalisation, improving accessibility, financing IT, understanding how to integrate different digital solutions, and helping digital service providers to enter new markets.

This report sheds light on one of the fastest-growing economic regions in the world - ASEAN. Countries within ASEAN are in themselves diverse, with economic, political, and cultural nuances. Over the next years, the confluence of favorable demographics, rising income levels, geopolitical shifts, and digital inter-connectedness will create tremendous opportunities in the region to advance inclusive and responsible consumption for decades to come. This report builds on in-depth consumer surveys conducted across over 1,740 households in 22 cities and towns in ASEAN. It also draws from over 35 in-depth interviews with private and public-sector leaders. This research leads to insights on ASEAN’s present and future outlook on consumption. The report highlights the most significant implications for businesses that aim to thrive in the ASEAN economies over the next decade. It also lays out a call to action for all stakeholders in ASEAN’s growth to build an inclusive future for the region in a post-Covid world.

As power supply in Nigeria´s electricity grid is unreliable, Lumos, an off-grid solar company provides access to affordable and reliable electricity to homes and businesses in Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire through its solar home systems. The report focuses on Lumos' customers. Especially, their experiences with the electricity grid before accessing solar home systems, their educational and financial backgrounds, if they are using solar power privately or for business and their feedback on possible improvement of Lumos' power supply.   

An increasing number of poor households are gaining access to financing for physical assets ranging from smartphones to solar panels. However, even as poor people increase their borrowing for these assets, their impact on people’s livelihoods - and how debt affects the benefits of asset ownership - remains poorly understood. CGAP has undertaken a comprehensive review of the available evidence to understand (i) how asset ownership can lead to improvements in well-being for poor households and (ii) whether obtaining an asset through a loan or lease as opposed to a transfer, grant, or outright purchase affects the benefits associated with ownership.

This white paper seeks to articulate the impacts of connectivity and propose a framework of financial, social and economic key performance indicators for the last-mile connectivity (LMC) sector, in order to ultimately drive investments in the sector. The purpose of the framework is to illuminate impact pathways that link investments in LMC enterprises to positive development outcomes.

This Policy Brief explores the main factors that influence willingness to pay (WTP) among utility customers to pay a hypothetical sanitation surcharge. These factors included: trust that the money would be spent correctly; perceived own-benefit from slum sanitation improvement; feelings of solidarity with slumdwellers; and satisfaction with water and sanitation services.

For over a decade, mobile money has been driving financial inclusion, opening access to digital transactions and giving people the tools to better manage their financial lives. This publication delves further into this topic and addresses the following key questions: How should the mobile money business model evolve to meet the changing needs of individuals and small businesses, and what is required to make this shift? Who will benefit from the ‘payments as a platform’ approach?