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When the Dutch private sector is involved in development in Africa, a dilemma may arise. The Dutch government claims that businesses could have a positive impact on local economic development on the continent in the longer term. But do their activ...

Assistance to small and medium enterprises only makes sense if it addresses the key constraints for SMEs and allows them to grow into larger and more productive enterprises.

Four main characteristics of the private equity model are crucial to drive SME development in developing countries.

The shift from wages to profits has led to an increase in inequality over the last three decades.

The stagnation in labour demand in the US is linked to the rise of finance. Strategies to encourage long-term employment growth must be found in that direction too.

After microfinance, the ‘missing middle’ is the new buzzword for SME development experts. Klaas Molenaar recommends to take a look into the history of microfinance to question the hype.

Negotiations on the goals that are to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) after 2015 are entering a critical phase. On 24 September 2024 the proposals of the Open Working Group (OWG) for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be pre...

The report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing, launched on 8 August 2014, has missed an important opportunity to accomplish a breakthrough on the pressing questions of development finance. Domin...

Volatile capital flows have maintained, if not exacerbated, the vulnerability of developing and emerging countries and affected domestic productivity and employment.

Some insights from the Understanding Risk Forum 2014

Social businesses that operate in high-, low- and medium-income countries face five overarching challenges.

Now that Official Development Assistance (ODA) has been declining for the past few years, academic discussions on how to attract additional public and private sources of funding for sustainable development are heating up.

If you want to make money and make an impact, you have to decide which of the two comes first, as landing in the middle is not easy.

The most imminent challenge of a social entrepreneur is a persistently misperceived friction between business and social goals, which is a concern for impact investors.

Although many organizations have developed metrics to measure and report on social impact, social enterprises and impact investors lack a standard of measuring impact.

On 15 May, The Broker and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs co-organized an expert meeting with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The 25 participants – a mix of researchers from knowledge institutes, civil servants and representativ...

Social entrepreneurship is booming, as is impact investment. However, the very specific raison d’être of these social ventures brings a whole new set of challenges. The most imminent of these is probably a persistently misperceived friction betwee...

In many countries the share of labour in national income has declined over the last three decades. As a result, the low and middle-income groups of people who depend the most on wages for their income are crumbling. Meanwhile, the rich elites who...

Although many organizations have developed metrics to measure and report on social impact, social enterprises and impact investors lack a standard and consistent way of measuring impact.

Organizing a social enterprise is more a question of generating social impact than income, which puts it at odds with the standard idea of doing business. Therefore, social entrepreneurship needs a business strategy that goes further than making a...

In their search to become more financially self-reliant development NGOs are experimenting with social entrepreneurship. Many are doing this to strengthen their financial situation, but social entrepreneurship can do much more and opens up new way...

With only a quarter of the world’s population having access to social protection, the case for expanding it is gaining ground in international discussions. The debate focuses on how best to design social protection, whether it should be universal...

In the last week of September, world leaders gathered in New York for the general debate marking the opening of the 68th UN General Assembly (GA). This was an important moment for the post-2015 process, as several events were organized on the glob...

A green transformation should be a core element of the post-2015 agenda and achieving it will depend on whether we will be able to create the knowledge needed.

Do alternative monetary models have the power to increase social inclusion? We should not be too optimistic.  

Donors are estimated to receive a return from development aid of 50–80%. To understand the financial effects of aid on donor countries, we need a new economic model.

An inclusive economy requires an inclusive financial system. But in South Sudan a focus on financial inclusion, for the time being, might be undesirable.

Will the BRICS Development Bank’s constructive capacities overcome its destructive ones? The world is watching.

The Broker, together with the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, organized the Dutch launch of the 2013 European Report on Development (ERD), Post-2015: Global Action for an Inclus...

‘Spurring economic transition’ is the follow-up to The Broker’s debate on inequality. What are the most important conclusions of the inequality debate that it needs to address?

Pro-poor strategies that are inclusive should be funded primarily by domestic sources, because foreign savings and investment tend to be volatile and difficult to target. However, this can be a problem for the very poor countries.

How can we create a more inclusive economy and what obstacles lie in the way? This debate seeks answers.

The ongoing trend of decentralising governance responsibilities to the sub-national level in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is likely to continue in the near future. In order to achieve its objectives, it will be crucial that this tran...

Today, the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness has opened in Busan, Korea. The HLF4 is an opportunity for the global development community to come together and showcase the results that our partner countries have been producing, and to sh...

Donors keeping their promises is the key to good aid effectiveness. The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan needs to respond to donors who fail to implement aid effectiveness principles.

The future of development aid transparency – the case for including other public flows for development

Susan George, (2010), “Whose Crisis, Whose Future? Towards a Greener, Fairer, Richer World”, Polity Press, Cambridge. The book is published as well in French and Spanish, see details below. Here is a book that attempts to explain how high finances...

Some countries stage high-level side events to show their commitment to the MDGs or otherwise underline their own priorities. Today I went to one, organized by the German government and presided by German chancellor Angela Merkel herself. She mode...

Marieke Hounjet is reporting live from the Brussels Forum for The BrokerThe last plenary of today was on: ‘Towards and MDG plus agenda?’ presenting a diverse range of talks. The first speaker, Louis Kasekende (Chief Economist, African Development...

Like Barten, Schrecker and Woodward we believe that health is not about health care only, and optimal health care is not the sum of interventions against health problems. Consequently we believe that the current international global health promoti...