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A collection of my articles
May 20, 2015
Can Mobile Money Extend Financial Services to Smallholder Farmers
Originally published on CGAP Blog: Kenya is widely acknowledged to be a global leader in mobile money. Over two-thirds of its adult population uses M-PESA, the mobile money system launched in 2007 by Safaricom. But even in Kenya, many are not using M-PESA. I know many smallholder farmers who are part of this group. They […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
What to Read on Agriculture Microfinance
June 23, 2014
Originally published by the Financial Access Initiative at NYU, and co-authored with Mike Warmington, microfinance partnerships manager at One Acre Fund: The majority of the world’s poor share one profession: farming. Most of these farmers cultivate less than 10 acres of land, far away from paved roads and with limited access to the improved seed and […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
It’s Not Just Money That is Needed – Using a Bundled Approach to Increase Productivity in the AU’s Year of Agriculture
January 29, 2014
Originally published on the Brookings Africa in Focus blog, and co-authored with Laurence Dare, East Africa policy manager at One Acre Fund: The majority of people in Africa are engaged in the same profession: farming. Most of these individuals are small-holder farmers with fewer than 5 acres of land and little access to seed, fertilizer, […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Can GAVI’s new partnership model crack ‘mhealth pilotitis’ while opening new markets for Vodafone?
August 21, 2013
Originally published on Devex Impact: To improve vaccination rates, the GAVI Alliance is tackling supply chain bottlenecks through an innovative partnership with Vodafone in Mozambique. Photo: VillageReach. In the 13 years since it was founded to jumpstart stagnating global vaccination rates, the GAVI Alliance has achieved some remarkable results. Three hundred and seventy million […]
Posted in: Devex
What the Global Food Security Act of 2013 can do for agriculture development
August 8, 2013
Originally published on the ONE blog, and co-authored with David Hong, agriculture policy manager at the ONE Campaign: Smallholder farmers are the largest population of poor people in the world. If we want to tackle global poverty, we have to address agriculture. The US government has prioritized agriculture development in Feed the Future, its $3.5 billion global hunger […]
Posted in: One Acre Fund
Is Feed the Future delivering results? Yes – with some limitations.
July 10, 2013
Originally published on the ONE blog, and co-authored with David Hong, agriculture policy manager at the ONE Campaign: After participating in a Feed the Future loan program, Robai Nyongesa drastically increased her maize yield and is selling the surplus to improve the house she lives in with her three children. Photo credit: Feed the Future […]
Posted in: One Acre Fund
Adopting A Scalable Operating Model Tailored to African Smallholders
May 31, 2013
Originally published in Ag4Impact’s 8 Views for the G8 report, and co-authored with Andrew Youn, executive director of One Acre Fund: Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world’s six major crop regions, and it is the only one that has the potential for significant yield improvements. Farmers in sub-Saharan Africa use 15 times less fertilizer […]
Posted in: One Acre Fund
Serving the Poor But Operating Like A Business
March 22, 2013
Originally published in Devex: At a time when public sector resources are limited, and every philanthropic dollar must go further, there is a robust debate in the international development community about how to achieve development goals with less money. To succeed in a resource-constrained environment, development practitioners should learn from a group that is adept […]
Posted in: Devex
Stephanie Hanson 
June 26, 2014
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