Publication database

This paper argues that to promote inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction, gender must be integrated into market systems development (MSD) approaches. It provides a gender and market development framework and recommendations at the intervention and the program level.

The microinsurance sector has grown to 500 million in 2012 due to the successes of many schemes. However, for every scheme that has succeeded, many more have struggled to reach scale, become viable or provide client value, and some have failed altogether. Research paper #42, titled “Learning from others’ mistakes” identifies the most common challenges that are likely to cause a scheme to fail using the experience of 12 cases.

The microinsurance sector has grown from 78 million policies in 2007 to 500 million in 2012 and the exponential growth is expected to continue, since the potential market is estimated at 3–4 billion policies. However, for every scheme that has succeeded, many more have struggled to reach scale, become viable or provide client value, and some have failed altogether. Many innovations have resulted from efforts to convert these near-misses to successes. Briefing note 36 draws on the experience of 12 such attempts to identify the most common challenges that caused severe problems. The challenges are organized in five clusters: Viability, Client Value, Operations, Partnerships and External.

Insurance is an effective mechanism to complement or extend social protection schemes. By using insurance mechanisms and the insurance industry, governments can achieve various public policy objectives, such as improved food security and universal health coverage. Effective public-private partnerships (PPPs) can achieve scale and improve the quality of social protection programmes by leveraging the skills and resources of the partners. This brief presents ten recommendations that governments and insurers should follow when designing and implementing a PPP in insurance.

This report discusses the importance of small businesses in poverty reduction, income equality and competitiveness, and the approach of Swiss Contact in small and medium sized enterprises (SME) promotion.

This report discusses functions and characteristics of multi-stakeholder initiatives, collaborations between a company and other firms, governments, civil society organisations, local communities and/or smallholders to achieve more inclusive business frameworks along the whole of their value chain. It analyses the role of stakeholders, governance models and approaches to evaluate their effectiveness, while providing five successful examples.

This report briefly explains the approach of shared value, including factors and principles which are necessary for the successful inclusion of poor people into a company's value chain. Various business cases from different sectors and countries are presented and the diverse process steps from value chain analysis to project formulation, project implementation, impact measurement and scaling are examined.

This report covers some of the human rights risks faced by businesses who operate global value chains. Through a series of interviews it outlines the opportunities for responsible business practices and some of the barriers to addressing human rights concerns and offers ten recommendations for how businesses can work with other stakeholders to reduce the risk of human rights abuses.

Being able to design and implement insurance public-private partnerships (PPPs) in insurance requires a long-term vision and a good understanding between partners. This paper presents ten recommendations, based on the experiences of four cases from Colombia, India, Mexico, and Peru, which aim to help both governments and the insurance industry to establish successful PPPs.

New products and services sold to low-income people in emerging markets often fl ame out before the eff ort reaches the scale it needs to thrive. Here’s what business leaders need to know to escape that fate.