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News Blog

Mutually Exacerbating Catastrophes: Responding to the 2020 Gates Goalkeepers Report

by Atul Tandon

Each fall, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation releases their annual Goalkeepers Report. Typically, the report celebrates our collective progress made toward the Sustainable Development Goals—progress that we at Opportunity frequently celebrate, too. Year over year, we have watched the incidence of extreme poverty around the world steadily decrease—from over 37% of the world’s population in 1990 to just under 7% last year. This progress gave us great reason for optimism, and encouraged our…

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Digital Finance in the Wake of COVID-19

by Rosa Wang

The recent report, “People’s Money: Harnessing Digitalization to Finance a Sustainable Future,” highlights the importance of digital finance in helping to reach the Sustainable Development Goals and explores how digitalization can be used to support vulnerable people, reduce inequalities, and sustain livelihoods. It notes that a key to transformative impact, especially now, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, is empowering people in their financing activities, especially as savers, borrowers,…

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A Bequest to Last a Lifetime: In Memory of Margaret Aydelotte

by Opportunity International

In 1953, a time when women were still excluded from many colleges and professions, Margaret Walker was making her own way. A London native, she excelled in the sciences and received a scholarship to attend Cambridge University’s Newnham College, where she pursed a degree in zoology and physiology. She stayed at Cambridge for her PhD in physiology, feeding a lifelong passion that would take her across the ocean, across another country, and across a lifetime.  Shortly after receiving her PhD, friends…

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Bringing Affordable Private Schools to the Table

by Atul Tandon and Andrew McCusker

In a recent letter directed to the G20, IMF, World Bank, Regional Development Banks, and national governments, 275 global leaders wrote: “With over one billion children still out of school because of the lockdown, there is now a real and present danger that the public health crisis will create a COVID generation who will lose out on schooling and whose opportunities are permanently damaged. While the more fortunate have had access to alternatives, the world’s poorest children have been locked…

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Nine lives in the world's largest refugee camp

by Opportunity International

As we move into fall, the Opportunity Book Club is turning to a nonfiction book that will open our eyes to the plight of refugees in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. This month, join us this month as we read the incredible stories in City of Thorns by Ben Rawlence. “Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other,” Amazon’s book description reads. “Its buildings are…

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Facing a Global Hunger Crisis

by Atul Tandon

Last week, the Associated Press, citing recent UN research, reported, “All around the world, the coronavirus and its restrictions are pushing already hungry communities over the edge, cutting off meager farms from markets and isolating villages from food and medical aid. Virus-linked hunger is leading to the deaths of 10,000 more children a month over the first year of the pandemic, according to an urgent call to action from the United Nations.” Over 100,000 children will die because of hunger…

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Governors Spotlight: Promod Haque

by Opportunity International

Promod and Dorcas Haque understand firsthand how an opportunity can change one’s life. As the daughter of missionary American parents, Dorcas spent her formative childhood years in rural, northwest Congo. While she and her siblings had the opportunity to pursue tertiary education and a sustainable career, many of her neighbors did not. For Promod, after graduating from university in India and accepted to Northwestern University for a master’s degree, he was denied scholarship or financial aid.…

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Lives Lived Well

by Mark Lutz

John Weberg traveled to the Dominican Republic in the late 1980s to evaluate microenterprise development. When I joined Opportunity International a couple of years later, I noticed in our records that every month since then, John and Jacque had contributed $1,000 without fail. Periodically I’d call to thank them, and their response was always the same, “No, thank you. Opportunity is doing the hard part. We just write the checks.” When I’d call to try to make arrangements to visit them in…

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Tribute to Juan Ulloa

by Dale Patterson

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord, your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 I first met Juan Ulloa in the late ’90s as we led Opportunity International Canada Insight Trips to Nicaragua, and we made a connection that I will cherish forever. Juan was a giant in our industry — as a leader and a man of God — and it was such an honour for us to serve alongside him. Opportunity Canada hosted Juan and his wife Ivania for one of our International…

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Opportunity International United States statement in support of racial equity, justice, and flourishing

by Opportunity International United States

As we join the world in anguish and lament over racism, oppression, violence, and injustice, we recall the very tenets on which Opportunity was founded.    Opportunity International exists to extend opportunity to those living in poverty in the developing world – Africa, Asia, and Latin America — giving them the means to overcome oppressive economic and social systems, improve their lives, and join the economic mainstream. We do this, motivated by our call to serve those who are left behind…

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