Publication database

Between November 2018 and November 2019, Gates Foundation and Mars Edge discussed collaboration opportunities to accelerate the urban go-to-market strategy of Mars Edge’s nutritious savory snack GoMo™, specifically designed to help address nutritional deficiencies of 6-18 year olds in India, with a focus on reaching low-income consumers. The Growth for Growth (G4G) network of service providers set up by the Foundation’s PSP program co-designed this strategy to reach lower-income urban areas. In December 2019, the PSP approved a grant to assess and adapt the model during a market test. As part of the grant, the collaboration between G4G and Mars then continued until December 2020. This case study aims to share the lessons learned throughout this journey, in terms of public-private collaboration and innovation process.

Around the globe, a wave of innovation is sweeping across the financial sector, from public equities to bonds, real estate to insurance, venture investing to small-business lending. In each of these areas, innovative players are using an ever-growing range of instruments to achieve social and environmental benefits, while producing attractive returns. This is the exciting field of sustainable finance, and it is growing fast. Nowhere is the opportunity for sustainable finance greater than in Asia, and only a sliver of this opportunity has been realized.

The Evangelical Social Action Forum (ESAF), through its Microfinance and Investments (P) Ltd (EMFIL) of India participated in the ILO’s Microfinance for Decent Work (MF4DW): Action Research project from 2008-2012. As part of this experimental research, ESAF launched and tested business development services and awareness raising activities on the benefits of formalisation for their members entrepreneurs in order to see if there was a positive impact of formalisation on the economic and social performances of clients and their enterprises, using a target versus control group methodology.

Financing health for low income households is a significant challenge. Naya Jeevan is trying an innovative approach: in order to make quality health services affordable to low-income workers in Pakistan, it seeks sponsors to pay the majority of the premium on behalf of workers whom they employ or have a business relationship with.

ITGI piloted radio frequency identification devices to address problems with claims. It used the introduction as an opportunity to change its processes. Find out how these changes allowed it to better serve its clients and improve the viability of the scheme in Case Brief #2.

Research Paper #6 observes the feasibility of implementing area yield insurance and weather insurance schemes for transferring financial risk and managing production risks. The objective included developing a composite insurance product based on normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and weather indices via a participatory approach; testing the yield loss estimation accuracy of such a product; and understanding people`s perceptions about the performance of the product. A relationship was found between the uptake of insurance and being above poverty line, subject to the buyer having heard about the insurer earlier, expecting a bad cropping season ahead, and having a close friend who has availed of the insurance scheme.