Podcasts about consultative group

Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, chair of global food security research network CGIAR, on adapting agriculture for climate and food security. --- Global agriculture changed dramatically during the 20th century as small, traditional farms were replaced by large-scale, monoculture farming in many parts of the world. This shift led to a dramatic increase in food production, helping to feed a global population that today exceeds 8 billion. Yet the revolution in agriculture has created a new set of challenges. Modern farming is more resource-intensive than ever, requiring substantial investments in machinery and a heavy reliance on chemical inputs like synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. These shifts have introduced new economic risks for farmers, who can struggle to keep up with rising input costs and volatile markets. Meanwhile, the widespread cultivation of bulk cash crops has often come at the expense of soil health, crop diversity, and the nutritional quality of the food we grow and consume. On the podcast, Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda—professor of agriculture at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, cattle farmer in Zimbabwe, and board chair of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)—discusses current efforts to make agriculture more resilient and sustainable. These include the revival of traditional crops, regenerative soil management techniques, and innovations aimed at reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Sibanda also examines how such practices can support environmental and climate goals while improving farmer livelihoods and strengthening long-term food security. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda is board chair of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Related Content Cooling People, Not Spaces: Surmounting the Risks of Air-Conditioning Over-Reliance https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/cooling-people-not-spaces-surmounting-the-risks-of-air-conditioning-over-reliance/ Closing the Climate Finance Gap: A Proposal for a New Green Investment Protocol https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/closing-the-climate-finance-gap-a-proposal-for-a-new-green-investment-protocol/ Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.eduSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Toronto Centre and CARE Canada co-hosted a virtual panel session to mark Canada's International Development Week.Closing the financial inclusion gender gap is essential for sustainable economic growth and stability. It empowers women socially and economically while strengthening financial systems. Safeguarding and accelerating the progress made over the past 15 years is critical to ensuring continued advancement.The panel explored strategies to drive women's financial inclusion, focusing on policy innovations, digital financial services, savings and loan groups, and public-private partnerships. Panelists also discussed how evolving financial ecosystems can support women entrepreneurs, expand access to credit, and promote lasting economic participation.Panelists:May Abulnaga, First Sub-Governor, Central Bank of Egypt; New Chair, Gender Inclusive Finance Committee, Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI)Sophie Sirtaine, CEO, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)Claudine Mensah Awute, Vice President, International Programs and Operations, CAREModerator:Babak Abbaszadeh, President and CEO, Toronto CentreWatch the webinar here.Read the transcript here. Read their biographies here.Écoutez le podcast en français ici.Escuche el podcast en español aqui.

Rev Dr Lesley Carroll joins Diane and Will to discuss what has motivated her during an extremely varied career, as a Presbyterian Minister, working in Victim Support, as Prisons Ombudsman, with the Equality Commission and the Consultative Group on Dealing with the Past. She also discusses her new role with the ICRIR, the much-criticised Independent Commission For Reconciliation and Information Recovery. For Lesley, it all comes down to how any Christian loves their enemies, and becomes a peacemaker.Send us a textProduced for Thrive IrelandMade by Commission Christian RadioIn association with The Northern Ireland Community Relations Council

Two thirds of the people facing the most hunger are farmers themselves, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). We heard about this shocking reality during our first episode. And now, we will hear about solutions to this urgent problem.  On today's episode of State of Seed, our last of the series, we will focus on seed access: how to get quality seed to those who need them most. Host Laura Rosbrow-Telem talks to a range of experts, including smallholder farmers, major seed organization representatives, and researchers. She speaks with Elizabeth Nsimadala, president of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation and a lifelong smallholder farmer, as well as ISF Secretary General Michael Keller, who discusses ISF's recently launched Seeds for Food Coalition, among other public-private initiatives.  Finally, we learn about farmer-led research from Sonja Vermeulen, Managing Director of Genetic Innovation at CGIAR (the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), and Andrew Mushita, head of the Community Technology Development Trust in Zimbabwe. They spoke on a panel about public-private partnerships at the World Seed Congress.  Special thanks to Alessandra Fajardo, Jorge Fernandez Vidal, and Ebunoluwa Ijeoma Ajobiewe, whose insights helped inform this series.  State of Seed is a show from the International Seed Federation, with production services by FP Studios.

In 2023, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) released a technical guide on Digital Financial Services for Financial Inclusion: Tools for Supervisors.This podcast highlights key takeaways from the guide, including:How to improve supervisory dataAn approach to designing supervisory frameworkHow artificial intelligence can improve or impair inclusionSpeakers: Juan Carlos Izaguirre, Senior Financial Sector Specialist, CGAPMehmet Kerse, Senior Financial Sector Specialist, CGAPHost: Demet Çanakçı, Senior Program Director, Toronto CentreRead the transcript here. Read their biographies here. https://www.torontocentre.org/https://www.cgap.org/

 A conversation with Andrew Natsios, former USAID Adminstrator on USAID under the Biden Administration. Andrew S. Natsios is an Executive Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University (2012-present) and Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs. He currently serves as Chair of the Program Advisory Committee for HarvestPlus, which is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and as a Fellow of the Michael E. DeBakey Institute for Comparative Cardiovascular Science and Biomedical Devices at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.   He was previously a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service (2006-2012). Professor Natsios served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to January 2006. He was the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan (2006-2007) to deal with the Darfur crisis and the North-South peace agreement. He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1975-1987) and in state government (1999-2001) as the Secretary of Administration and Finance. He was the CEO of the Big Dig in Boston, the largest construction project in American history after a cost-overrun scandal. Professor Natsios was VP of the NGO World Vision U.S. (1993-1998). He was a member of the U.S. Army Reserves for twenty-three years, served in the Gulf War in 1991, and was a Lt. Colonel when he retired in 1995. He is a graduate of Georgetown University (BA history) and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government (MPA). Professor Natsios, with President George H. W. Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., recently edited Transforming Our World: President George H. W. Bush and American Foreign Policy. This book, available in print in December 2020, brings together a distinguished collection of foreign policy practitioners—career and political—who participated in the unfolding of international events as part the Bush administration to provide insider perspective by the people charged with carrying them out. Professor Natsios is the author of three books: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1997), The Great North Korean Famine (2001), and Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know; collaborated on thirteen other books; and has published opinion pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. He has published twenty-eight journal articles in, among others, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, the Foreign Service Journal, Parameters, and PRISM.   ABOUT THE HOST:   The podcast is hosted by Mike Shanley, Founder and CEO of Konektid International and AidKonekt Data, the leading USAID partner support firms that help clients to grow their USAID funding portfolios. Mike has nearly two decades of experience in working with USAID projects and funding opportunities. His USAID funding expertise has been recognized by the largest aid and development associations, partners, and conferences, including by USAID, Devex, British Expertise International, AidEx, and by the Society for International Development-US where he also serves as Board Member.   Websites: Konektid International: www.konektid.com AidKonekt Data: https://www.aidkonekt.com/usaid-biz-dev Connect with Mike Shanley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/konektid-usaid-specialists/

In March 2023, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a synthesis report warning that the world needs to act fast to reduce emissions. The synthesis report is likely to be the go-to document for many stakeholders setting their climate policies and plans over the next several years.    In this episode of ESG Insider, we hear from two authors of the IPCC report: Dr. Aditi Mukherji, who is Director of the Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Impact Area Platform at the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). CGIAR is a global research partnership that works with scientists around the world on agricultural innovation and is dedicated to transforming food, land and water systems in a climate crisis.      And we speak to Dr. Peter Thorne, who is Professor in Physical Geography at Maynooth University in Ireland. He is also Director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units group at the university.   "The future we write depends upon the emissions choices we make today and in the coming decades," Peter tells us. He says that the world has the tools to stop global warming, but this will require a concerted effort across all parts of society. "We should get to net zero as quickly as we can. That is the very best, most resilient way that we can move forward," he says.  Photo source: Getty Images  Copyright ©2023 by S&P Global    DISCLAIMER     This piece was published by S&P Global Sustainable1, a part of S&P Global.    By accessing this Podcast, I acknowledge that S&P GLOBAL makes no warranty, guarantee, or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information featured in this Podcast. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice. Unless specifically stated otherwise, S&P GLOBAL does not endorse, approve, recommend, or certify any information, product, process, service, or organization presented or mentioned in this Podcast, and information from this Podcast should not be referenced in any way to imply such approval or endorsement. The third party materials or content of any third party site referenced in this Podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions, standards or policies of S&P GLOBAL. S&P GLOBAL assumes no responsibility or liability for the accuracy or completeness of the content contained in third party materials or on third party sites referenced in this Podcast or the compliance with applicable laws of such materials and/or links referenced herein. Moreover, S&P GLOBAL makes no warranty that this Podcast, or the server that makes it available, is free of viruses, worms, or other elements or codes that manifest contaminating or destructive properties.    S&P GLOBAL EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHER DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY INDIVIDUAL'S USE OF, REFERENCE TO, RELIANCE ON, OR INABILITY TO USE, THIS PODCAST OR THE INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THIS PODCAST.  

Promotional Links: StorySeed Marketing and Messaging (Beta) Course - An all-inclusive marketing and messaging course for impact entrepreneurs seeking to get their emotionally-engaging message to the right people, in the right way, at the right time. StorySeed is a self-paced course that takes you from the core aspects of brand story development all the way through scaling your efforts and weaving your work in the movements you're passionate about. This is a truly regenerative approach to marketing using the tools and techniques business goliaths use, but designed to be true to the principles and ethics of the greater sustainability and regeneration, putting the marketing power in the hands of the positive change-makers of the world.   Welcome back to the Seeds of Tao Podcast, we have another great interview with a regenerative entrepreneur this week, a true systems changer. Josh interviews Max Rünzel, Co-Founder and CEO of HiveTracks, who is revolutionizing the way beekeepers can gather data, and changing the narrative of the value of biodiversity to the masses. Max shares his entrepreneurial journey though travel and study, involvement with the United Nations, and learning to bring big visions to market as an entrepreneur. He also goes into his experience with getting funding rounds and building capital as a regenerative enterprise to expand his positive impact in the world. Here are the notes from the episode, don't forget to follow, comment, or write a review of the podcast if you enjoyed today's episode. It means a lot

Dr. Ismahane Elouafi, Ph.D. is the Chief Scientist at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations ( https://www.fao.org/about/leadership/elouafi ). The FAO is an organization that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Dr. Elouafi leads the scientific mission of the organization, advocating for diversifying into neglected and underutilized crops, promoting use of non-fresh water in agriculture, rethinking food systems as a whole, and empowerment of women in science ( https://www.fao.org/science-technology-and-innovation/en ). From 2012 until her appointment at FAO, Dr. Elouafi was Director General at the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture based in the United Arab Emirates. In this role, she spearheaded the development and implementation of the center's long-term strategy and expanded its mandate to marginal environments, an agroecosystem concept which she helped to mainstream in the global research and development discourse. Dr. Elouafi had previously held senior scientific and leadership positions, including Senior Adviser to the Assistant Deputy Minister, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Branch in Ottawa, Canada (2006-2007); the National Manager of Plant Research Section (2007-2010); and Director of Research Management and Partnerships Division at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (2010-2012). Dr. Elouafi had also worked as a scientist with several international research organizations, including the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Dr. Elouafi has been a member of various strategy expert panels and advisory groups, including with the Global Commission on Adaptation and HarvestPlus. Dr. Elouafi sits on the boards of the International Food Policy Research Institute, the USA; the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International, the UK; and the Professional Development Institute, Canada. Dr. Elouafi is also a member of the Scientific Group for the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit and of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) System Management Board. Dr. Elouafi's contributions to science and policy have been recognized with a number of prestigious awards and accolades, including the National Reward Medal by His Majesty Mohamed VI, the King of Morocco (2014), and the Excellence in Science Award from the Global Thinkers Forum (2014). Dr. Elouafi holds a B.Sc. in Agricultural Sciences (1993) and an M.Sc. in Genetics and Plant Breeding (1995) from the Hassan II Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine, Morocco, and a Ph.D. in Genetics (2001) from the University of Cordoba, Spain. Support the show

"Cancel the meeting you've set to remove me!" ___ An association relating to the education of First Nations people, D, planned to convene a meeting to consider removing its president, P. P applied to the Court on an urgent basis to restrain D from doing so: [1] The meeting was set for a Sunday, P having been provided with very little notice. P approached the Court for an urgent hearing on the Friday beforehand, and the Court made the orders sought: [2] The president said (i) the meeting was not called in accordance with D's constitution, and (ii) for it to proceed would be to deny procedural fairness i.e. the chance to respond to criticism: [6] The president had been involved in education for 40 years, was a life member of D, and had been elected president in 2021: [15] P said that if their role as president was to end, they may need to reapply for their existing job, with a risk they might fail: [16], [42] D's work includes seeking, and then applying, funding. The evidence suggested P would argue that they deserved credit for $20m in funding for the association: [26] Evidence suggested a power struggle and the passing of a motion of no confidence in P in December 2022: [28] – [30] In January 2023, lawyers for the 8 other members of the management committee wrote to P setting out complaints and seeking a response: [31] The complaints included complaints of misusing D's funds: [32] P denied the complaints: [38] P was sick in hospital at the time of the hearing and would not recover in time to attend the meeting in any case: [43] P satisfied the criteria for an interlocutory injunction: proving (i) there was a serious question to be tried and (ii) the balance of convenience favoured an injunction: [47] The obligation of the association to afford P procedural fairness arose by inference: [49] – [51] For the meeting to proceed would offend that requirement due to: P's illness, the lack of particulars of the claims made, and the lack of time given to respond to the claims: [52] – [55] As such, the Court found that a serious question arose: [58] The Ds could not show any prejudice arose from the delay, the risk of the president incurring costs that were not reasonably identifiable was not apparent: [61] P would likely suffer serious reputational loss if the meeting was to go ahead: [63] Indeed, the D may suffer loss of funding for removing its president in circumstances where procedural fairness appears that it may have been denied. The external funding D relies on may be put at risk: [64] P would almost certainly suffer financial loss if the meeting went ahead, where D would be unlikely to suffer loss: [65] The balance of convenience was met and the injunction granted: [68], [71] ___ Please look out for Coffee and Case Note and James d'Apice on your favourite platform!

This week Dustin speaks with Dr. Soumya Balasubramanya, senior economist at the World Bank based with its global environmental practice. Soumya is trained as a development economist and works on applied research projects at the intersection of environment, poverty and development across Asia and Africa. Before joining the Bank in 2022, Dr. Balasubramanya spent 10 years at the International Water Management Institute, a part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, rising to group leader in economics. Her work has demonstrated extraordinary range and rigour, in her own words focused on “advancing knowledge on understanding the fractal vulnerabilities faced by the poor”. We discuss this sweep of work in three major parts. We start with the spark for becoming a development economist and what it means to think like an economist in terms of evidence and connections to other fields. We continue by exploring why we know so little about key topics in water, agriculture and development. We discuss why it is important to learn from failure, taking a deep dive into India's groundwater management and the uneven success of policy experiments with energy pricing reforms and solar irrigation. We conclude by discussing the insights for early career researchers seeking to work in development research and what it is like to work at large development organizations in this path.  Soumya's website: https://soumyabalasubramanya.com/ Further reading: Balasubramanya, S., Buisson, M-C. 2022. Positive incentives for managing groundwater in the presence of informal water markets: perspectives from India. Environmental Research Letters, 17, 101001. Balasubramanya, S., Brozovic, N., Fishman, R., Lele, S., Wang, Z. 2022. Managing irrigation under increasing water scarcity. Agricultural Economics, 53, 976-984.   Buisson, M-C., Balasubramanya, S., Stifel, D. 2021. Electric pumps, groundwater, agriculture and water buyers: evidence from West Bengal. Journal of Development Studies, 57, 1893-1911. Balasubramanya, S., Stifel, D. 2020. Water, agriculture and poverty in an era of climate change: why do we know so little? Food Policy, 93.

“… there are roughly about 30 million children who are orphaned or abandoned; they are living on the streets as far India is concerned. But out of the 30 million, roughly about five to six lacs (hundred thousand) only make up to a formalized channel itself….Surprisingly, the adoption rate is very low in India, unlike the US or Japan, there are roughly on an average 3000 to 4000 children who get adopted.” YT - https://youtu.be/h6AtuVPrAR4 Meet Mr. Vidyadhar Prabhudesai! Recipient of Thane City's second highest civilian awards. Vidyadhar is a versatile professional who started off in the corporate sector but soon realised that his passion lies in empowering people. In this episode we talk about the adoption eco-system in India and how some reforms are urgently needed. He is a life-long change maker and now a father to the beautiful Adyaveda. He founded LeadCap Trust which empowered more than 10 million youth between 2007 and 2012 and LeadCap Ventures which consults for national governments and international institutions like UN, World Economic Forum. He is a Curator of Global Shapers of the World Economic Forum and Fellow of UN and Ford Foundation. An alumnus of Thunderbird and Aegis, he shares board seats on institutions such as International Foundation for Sustainable Peace and Development, Harvard Business Review, Dalham Foundation. He is also a member of Principal Scientific Advisor's Consultative Group, Mentor of Change, NITI Aayog and Ambassador of Jagriti Yatra. Know more about him - http://vidyadharprabhudesai.com ; https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidyadhar/ Media Articles by Vidyadhar on this topic: https://thelogicalindian.com/app-lite/trending/low-level-of-child-adoption-in-india-38245 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vidyadhar_epw-october-8-2022-carried-my-article-ref-ugcPost-6985210303995129856-WxvH?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop CARA - https://cara.nic.in Previous Conversation with Vidyadhar: YT - https://youtu.be/JLEF7FXiVYc Subscribe and Follow SCM - https://linktr.ee/suchconversationsmatter #adoption #adoptioninindia #cara #childadoption #orphanedchildren #surrogacy #IVF #cradlesignage #childrensday #vidyadharprabhudesai #saurabhnanda #SuchConversationsMatter #IndianPodcast #SpotifyPodcast #Podcast #GooglePodcast #ApplePodcast

Many people are now suggesting that the food system is broken, but what do they mean by broken?  Is the problem the quantity of food? The quality? The inequality within the system, or its impact on the climate and environmental crisis? Despite these critiques coming on multiple fronts, the food system appears to be continuing down the same path it has been on. In this interview with Christophe Bene, we discuss the food system, the four dominant narratives about why the food system isn't working and the different concerns and values they reflect. We also talk about the key actors that can keep the system on its current trajectory or push it to change. Christophe is a senior researcher at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and is senior policy adviser for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). You can find more of Christophe's work hereThe papers that informed most of our discussion today are this one on the narratives and this one on the barriers to the transformation of the food system.If you enjoyed the narrative approach to complex systems, check out Episode 8- The six globalisation  with Anthea RobertsAwesome graphic exploring Organic vs Regenerative vs Agroecological  practices and their underlying values that I mentioned in the showAlso, check out the website and join the discord!

In its simplest definition, microfinance refers to small loans usually worth less than $1,000 for people with low incomes. Microfinance is a widely discussed idea in development circles, particularly surrounding women's empowerment. But how effective is it?On this episode of the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, we look at why microfinance has had mixed results and learn about the best ways to distribute these kinds of loans. First, we talk to a Turkish Grameen Foundation/Kiva microcredit recipient named Kudret about the impact microfinance has had on her personally. Then, Roshaneh Zafar speaks with host Reena Ninan about her experiences launching the Kashf Foundation, the first microfinance institution in Pakistan and the largest loan provider to women in the country.Special thanks this week to Stephen Rasmussen from the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, who recommended FP talk to Zafar. Also, thanks to Aslıhan Köksal and Brit Heiring from Kiva, Andrée Simon from FINCA, and a number of others who spoke to us for this episode. The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women is a Foreign Policy podcast made possible through funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Treehugger podcast is celebrating two years and 10,000 downloads! Working from a foundation of feminist political ecology, Marlène Elias questions who decides the sustainability agenda and urges all of us to pay attention to the power and politics that shape the values, meanings and science driving restoration. Marlène leads gender research and gender integration at the Alliance of Biodiversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and Gender Research Coordinator for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. Her research focuses on gendered dimensions of forest management and restoration, forest-based livelihoods, and tree resource management. An article by Marlène and comrades wrote in Spring 2021 caught my eye that was also the theme of a special issue in the journal Ecological Restoration called Restoration for Whom, by Whom? They work from a foundation of feminist political ecology which drills down on three pillars of power relations, historical awareness and scale integration. Elias, M., Joshi, D., & Meinzen-Dick, R. (2021). Restoration for Whom, by Whom? A Feminist Political Ecology of Restoration. Ecological Restoration, 39(1-2), 3-15. SER Webinar: Restoration for Whom, by Whom? Exploring the Socio-political Dimensions of Restoration Elias, M., Kandel, M., Mansourian, S., Meinzen‐Dick, R., Crossland, M., Joshi, D., ... & Winowiecki, L. (2021). Ten people-centered rules for socially sustainable ecosystem restoration. Restoration Ecology, e13574. Arranged roughly in order from pre-intervention, design/initiation, implementation, through the monitoring, evaluation and learning phases, the ten people-centered rules are: Recognize diversity and interrelations among stakeholders; Actively engage communities as agents of change; Address socio-historical contexts; Unpack and strengthen resource tenure for marginalized groups; Advance equity across its multiple dimensions and scales; Generate multiple benefits; Promote an equitable distribution of costs, risks, and benefits; Draw on different types of evidence and knowledge; Question dominant discourses; and Practice inclusive and holistic monitoring, evaluation and learning. It takes a community to keep a podcast going. Donate to the show @myadrick via Paypal and Venmo and CashApp. Music on the show was from Cheel and DJ Freedem Tell a few friends about the show and follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter @treehuggerpod Review treehugger podcast on iTunes

Bonnie McClafferty is the Director of Food Safety at GAIN, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and Chief of Party for USAID's EatSafe: Evidence and Action Towards Safety Nutritious Food. She has more than twenty years of experience working in agricultural research and development within the institutes that make up the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) under the World Bank. Bonnie joined GAIN from HarvestPlus, where for twelve years she headed up their office on Development and Communications.  In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to Bonnie [25:18] about: Overview of the EatSafe Projects Traditional markets in the developing world The role of nutrition in the definition of safe food The wild west of food safety Empowering local communities to engage in food safety Why food safety is sidelined in public talks of health and nutrition The youth movement The power of communication The UN Food Systems Summit Emerging guidelines for safe food UN sustainability goals Why we need data "If it's not safe, it cannot nourish." How food safety and food security are intertwined The impact of COVID Call to action and building capacity News and Resources Steve Mandernach, Executive Director of AFDO joins us to discuss the results of their 2021 State of Food Safety Resources Survey. [4:57] AFDO Announces It's 2021 State Food Safety Resource We Want to Hear from You! Please send us your questions and suggestions to podcast@foodsafetymagazine.com

Our Pacific Exchanges team recently hosted a special Financial Inclusion and Beyond live virtual event that explored lessons from around the world in the use of technology and public policy to build more inclusive financial systems and drive financial health. The event was moderated by Sean Creehan, the team's lead for financial health and inclusion, and brought together professionals from different corners of the financial inclusion and health spaces, including Greta Bull, the president and chief executive officer of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP); José Quiñonez, the founding chief executive officer of Mission Asset Fund (MAF); Arjuna Costa, a managing partner at Flourish Ventures; and Ting Jiang, a behavioral economist. We're excited to share the live event in full as a special episode of Financial Inclusion and Beyond. Regular listeners of the podcast will recognize these voices from their episodes throughout the season; the live event allowed them to discuss how they were managing the challenges to inclusion posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some take-aways from the live event include: The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected efforts to improve financial inclusion and health. Organizations like CGAP, a World Bank Group affiliate, and MAF, which traditionally focus on the longer-term issues of inclusion, had to re-focus efforts almost overnight to deal with issues related to public health. Those countries which had invested in digital financial system infrastructure could respond with stimulus relief quicker than those which relied on traditional models. Ting Jiang zeroed in the pandemic's effects at the individual level. At the individual level, it is important to adapt behaviors and develop products and technologies that withstand moments of stress. The poor shouldn't be forced to be secondary or third-order users of financial products but should have access to products designed for their lifestyles at an affordable cost. Fintech should be celebrated when it is also in service of the poor, not simply because it is a shiny new toy.

In episode two of our series Financial Inclusion & Beyond, we spoke with Greta Bull, the chief executive officer of CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) and a director at the World Bank. Greta is an expert in development finance, primarily focused on small and medium enterprise finance, microfinance, and digital financial services. We sat down to discuss the history of financial inclusion efforts and the evolution of the financial inclusion movement, the micro and macro effects of inclusion, and lessons learned from various efforts around the globe. Key takeaways from the discussion include:  While global inclusion efforts have taken different paths, they all seem to be converging at the ‘platformization’ of financials services. The modern financial inclusion movement evolved from microfinance in the  1970s and 80s in countries like Bangladesh and reached scale with the creation of digital credit by the mobile network operator (MNO) M-Pesa in Kenya in 2008. Today, fintechs and banks have been competing across a disaggregated landscape of financial services and are moving to new platforms that offer a range of competing services to the public. Financial inclusion has traditionally meant the inclusion in formal financial systems of poor people in emerging markets. Effectively done, it provides access to financial services to people who previously didn't have them; establishes a viable and reliable alternative to working entirely with cash; and adds value to people's lives. Financial inclusion can significantly improve individuals lives. Efforts over the past decade have been effective in bringing 1.2 billion individuals into the formal financial system, but 1.7 billion remain excluded. There is still work to do, both in expanding and deepening inclusion and harnessing these efforts to expand global growth. Please note that the initial interview was recorded prior to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.  Related Content All humanity can benefit from the digitization of finance Great Expectations: Fintech and the Poor Financial Inclusion: Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? (Pt 1) Financial Inclusion: Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? (Pt 2) The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or of the Federal Reserve System.

My guests today are leaders in the drive to bring the world’s poor into the formal financial system. They are Sharmista Appaya, Financial Sector Specialist at the World Bank Group, and Ivo Jenik, Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP. CGAP stands for the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor and sits within the World Bank as essentially a financial inclusion think tank.

Seed banks are collections of seeds that researchers use to protect valuable genetic resources both for breeding and conservation purposes. But where did they get started and how have they become what they are today? On this episode, Dr. Helen Anne Curry will guide us through the history of seed banks, including their origins, the various phases of their development, and their ongoing role today. Tune in to learn: What seed banks are and what they can look like around the world What controversies and challenges seed banking has faced How seed banks have moved from local to global efforts (and back again) This podcast is part of the Societies Seed Week, which will be running from March 22-26, 2021. Check out the Seed Week link below, where you’ll find links to papers, k-12 activities, videos, news stories, blogs, and more. If you would like to find transcripts for this episode or sign up for our newsletter, please visit our website: http://fieldlabearth.libsyn.com/ Contact us at podcast@sciencesocieties.org or on Twitter @FieldLabEarth if you have comments, questions, or suggestions for show topics, and if you want more content like this don’t forget to subscribe. If you would like to reach out to Helen, you can find her here: hac44@cam.ac.uk https://twitter.com/hacurry https://www.people.hps.cam.ac.uk/index/teaching-officers/curry Resources CEU Quiz: https://www.certifiedcropadviser.org/education/classroom/classes/972 Societies’ Seed Week Home Page: https://www.crops.org/seed-week 'Why Save a Seed?' by Helen Anne Curry: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/703337 You can discover more of Helen Anne Curry's research here: https://www.people.hps.cam.ac.uk/index/teaching-officers/curry The Profit of the Earth by Courtney Fullilove: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo25879968.html Bioversity: https://www.bioversityinternational.org/ Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR): https://www.cgiar.org/ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): http://www.fao.org/home/en/  Campbell Scientific is a world leader in digital sensors and systems. Their sensors provide accurate data to researchers, scientists, and governments. Their flagship VUE™ products are state-of-the-art, digital sensors that are compact, flexible, and draw low power. Featured VUE™ products include the ClimaVUE™50 complete weather sensor, the SoilVUE™10 soil moisture and temperature profile sensor, and the RainVUE™10 precipitation sensor. Please visit them at www.campbellsci.com to learn more about these innovative digital sensors. Field, Lab, Earth is copyrighted to the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

This episode we continue talking about intergovernmental organizations with global impact on environmental policy by discussing the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Home to more than 8,000 scientists, researchers, technicians, and staff, the CGIAR and its 15 research centers drive agricultural research and innovations to improve food access and security for billions of people. Show notes and references available at our website or with this link https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MPMuehAnEj6fYX9gCwohlFfX8w1XWIXqTA7pyTCJAkU/edit?usp=sharing 

Ivo Jenik, Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) talks to TC about the objectives of a regulatory sandbox, and how to design and implement a sandbox.

Brigit and Don welcome Dr. Ruth Goodwin Groen to discuss the impact of the Better Than Cash Alliance, addressing the challenges of cultivating responsible digital payment methods, G20’s Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion, how Dr. Ruth Goodwin-Groen began advocating for women’s financial equality, how digitization can relieve systemic corruption, Covid-19’s heightened impact on women, and the ethical issues and implications of the lack of international access to identification. Dr. Ruth Goodwin-Groen is the Managing Director of the United Nations based Better Than Cash Alliance, leading its efforts to accelerate the global shift from cash to digital payments by governments, companies and international organizations. This continues her work on poverty reduction as it helps to increase transparency, efficiency and provide a pathway to financial inclusion, driving inclusive growth. She represents Better Than Cash Alliance at the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion, is a member of the World Economic Forum Financial Inclusion Steering Committee and a member of the Reference Group of the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development. Previously, Dr. Goodwin-Groen was the Australian Co-Chair of the G20’s Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion and the Financial Services for the Poor Adviser at the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). She has also advised organizations in the field of financial inclusion including the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, the World Bank Group, the Soros Foundation, the UK Department for International Development, the FinMark Trust (South Africa), the German Technical Cooperation, Women’s World Banking, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as well as Cambridge University in over 15 different countries. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Bath, UK, an M.B.A. (Distinction) from Harvard Business School, USA and; a B.Sc. Hons. (1st) from the University of Western Australia.

Ivo Jenik of the World Bank's Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) discusses the opportunities and critical dependencies for digitalization to support greater financial inclusion, and key learnings for the application of regulatory sandboxes.

“Gene bank” may sound like something out of a Sci-fi movie – but they are actually really important in the real world! Gene banks are a type of biological repository where genetic material is stored. When it comes to crops, gene banks hold the future of food, and include seeds, plant cuttings and more. Join Dr. Quave this week as she chats with Dr. Ren Wang, the Director General of the China National GeneBank, based in Shenzhen, China.      *** ABOUT OUR GUEST Dr. Ren Wang obtained his Ph.D in Entomology in 1985 at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.  He was a researcher (Assistant Research Professor, Associate Professor and Professor) at the Institute of Biological Control of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) during 1985-1993, and pioneered China’s program of managing invasive exotic plants using the classical biological control approach. He was the funding Director of the joint Sino-American Biological Control Laboratory between USDA and the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture during 1987-1993. From 1993 to 1995, he was the Deputy Director, Programme Development of the International Institute of Biological Control (IIBC), CAB International, UK.    He served two terms as Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences during 1995-2000 and 2010-2013, respectively. During 2000-2007, Dr. Wang served as Deputy Director General for Research at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) based in the Philippines. In July 2007, He became the Director of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) based at the World Bank in Washington, DC, USA.  During Feb 2013 to Mar 2018, Dr. Wang served as Assistant Director General of FAO’s Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department, based in Rome, Italy. In Mar 2018, he retired from FAO, and joined BGI as the Special Advisor to the Chairman of BGI. In April 2019, he was appointed as Director General, China National GeneBank, Shenzhen.     Dr. Wang served on a series of high level international boards and committees in the area of agriculture and agricultural research, and was invited speaker in numerous conferences and forum in both China and the world. He is currently a board member and chair of the Program Committee of the International  Center for Biosaline Agriculture, Dubai. *** ABOUT FOODIE PHARMACOLOGY  Now in Season 2 with more than sixty episodes! Tune in to explore the food-medicine continuum with Dr. Cassandra Quave as she meets with award-winning authors, chefs, scientists, farmers and experts on the connections between food and health. New episodes release every Monday! Like the show? Please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts and share your favorite episodes with your friends!    *** PODCAST DESCRIPTION: Have you ever wondered where your food comes from? Not just where it’s grown today, but where it originally popped up in the world? Have you ever bit into a delicious ripe fruit and wondered, hey – why is it this color? What’s responsible for this amazing flavor? Is this good for my health? Could it even be medicinal? Foodie Pharmacology is a science podcast built for the food curious, the flavor connoisseurs, chefs, science geeks, plant lovers and adventurous taste experimenters out in the world! Join American ethnobotanist Dr. Cassandra Quave on this adventure through history, medicine, cuisine and molecules as she explores the amazing pharmacology of our foods.    *** SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW:  Subscribe to Foodie Pharmacology on Apple Podcasts for audio and the TeachEthnobotany YouTube Channel to see full video of new episodes. You can also find more than 50 episodes of the show at https://foodiepharmacology.com/ Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @foodiepharma or on Facebook at "Foodie Pharmacology with Cassandra Quave"    *** PODCAST REVIEWS:  “Professor Cassandra Quave brings quality Science to the public. She covers a wide range of topics in-depth in a seemingly effortless way. Learn from a passionate researcher, and be inspired!” – Ina on Apple Podcasts Reviews   “You are what you eat — and what you listen to. Dr. Quave combines science with food, culture and history in this enjoyable, educational podcast.”--Carol on Facebook Page Reviews    “We have needed this podcast for a long time. Dr. Quave's willingness to share her knowledge of plant usage and history make these podcasts interesting and helpful. The interviews from around the world are always loaded with information. Waiting on a new episode every week.”--Alan on Apple Podcasts Reviews    “Great podcast about favorite foods! If you love food, you will love this podcast! Dr. Quave makes the science behind the food approachable and easy to understand. Love it!”--Liz on Apple Podcasts Reviews    “Dr Quave is amazingly informative. I could listen to her talk all day. And thanks to these podcasts I can! Thank you!”-- Wendy on Facebook Page Reviews    “Fascinating and entertaining! Dr. Quave is not just one of the foremost experts on the subject, she is also an incredibly gifted teacher and storyteller. I highly recommend Foodie Pharmacology to anyone with any interest in the subject.”-- John on Facebook Page Reviews    “Dr. Quave is a brilliant scientist and storyteller, which makes this program both entertaining and accessible!”-- Ernest on Facebook Page Reviews    “Dr. Quave is my go to source for all things Ethnobotany. Her new podcast is a great way to learn about plants and their many uses, ranging from food to medicine and so much more. I can’t wait for the newest episode!”--Paul on Apple Podcasts Reviews

Did you know it is the 75th Birthday of the United Nations this year? How do we know if there has been any progress in the past 75 years? In this SDG Talks, Vidyadhar Prabhudesai explores past and future issues around how the 17 SDGs intersect to drive a positive impact around people, the planet, peace, and prosperity. Throughout the chat, we explore the impacts of weather, migrations, how we can measure impact, and what we can do next! Vidyadhar Prabhudesai is a diversified professional. He founded LeadCap Trust which empowered more than 10 million youth between 2007 and 2012 and LeadCap Ventures which consults for national governments and international institutions like the UN, World Economic Forum. He is a Curator of Global Shapers of the World Economic Forum and Fellow of UN and Ford Foundation. An alumnus of Thunderbird and Aegis, he shares board seats on institutions such as International Foundation for Sustainable Peace and Development, Harvard Business Review, Dalham Foundation. He is also a member of Principal Scientific Advisor's Consultative Group, Mentor of Change, NITI Aayog, and Ambassador of Jagriti Yatra. https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidyadhar/?originalSubdomain=in

“Tapping into Wild Carrot Diversity for New Sources of Abiotic Stress Tolerance to Strengthen Carrot Pre-Breeding in Bangladesh and Pakistan” with Dr. Philipp Simon. Carrots are a diverse crop that grows worldwide. Packed with nutrients and flavor, many of its wild relatives also carry important traits such as resistance to abiotic stresses like drought, heat, or salinity. These traits can be crucial as we look at how to feed our growing population; however, without growing these carrot wild relatives under these stressful conditions, it can be difficult to pinpoint which varieties carry which traits. Partnering with scientists in Bangladesh and Pakistan, Dr. Phil Simon and his team are working to identify valuable traits in carrots from all over the world in the hopes of improving future carrot breeding efforts. Tune in to learn: What common roadside plant is actually a wild relative of carrot How the lifecycle of carrots works What it’s like to go on a seed collecting expedition How to grow carrots at home This paper is currently undergoing publication. The show notes will update when the final link is available. If you would like to find transcripts for this episode or sign up for our newsletter, please visit our website: http://fieldlabearth.libsyn.com/ Contact us at podcast@sciencesocieties.org or on Twitter @FieldLabEarth if you have comments, questions, or suggestions for show topics, and if you want more content like this don’t forget to subscribe. If you would like to reach out to Phil, you can find him here: Philipp.Simon@usda.gov Resources CEU Quiz: https://www.certifiedcropadviser.org/education/classroom/classes/863 Global Crop Diversity Trust: https://www.croptrust.org/ Crop Wild Relatives Project: www.cwrdiversity.org United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization: http://www.fao.org/home/en/ Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research: https://www.cgiar.org/ Field, Lab, Earth is copyrighted to the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

Please welcome Mr. Vidyadhar Prabhudesai! A maker of leaders. Vidyadhar is a versatile professional who started off in the corporate sector but soon realised that his passion lies in empowering people. He founded LeadCap Trust which empowered more than 10 million youth between 2007 and 2012 and LeadCap Ventures which consults for national governments and international institutions like UN, World Economic Forum. He is a Curator of Global Shapers of the World Economic Forum and Fellow of UN and Ford Foundation. An alumnus of Thunderbird and Aegis, he shares board seats on institutions such as International Foundation for Sustainable Peace and Development, Harvard Business Review, Dalham Foundation. He is also a member of Principal Scientific Advisor's Consultative Group, Mentor of Change, NITI Aayog and Ambassador of Jagriti Yatra. Know more about Vidyadhar - http://vidyadharprabhudesai.com The music for this video was suggested by Vidyadhar as this song is the song of the Climate Reality Corps. Listen to the complete song here - https://lnkd.in/dhFw5Mb This episode also signifies the change of our logo :) #GlobalChangeMaker #Leadership #SDGs #ClimateRealityCorps #DreamonX #GlobalShapers #UN #LeadCap #SaurabhNanda #careerconsultant #careeradvice #careercounselling #careercounseling #sustainability #changemakers #SuchConversationsMatter #Leader #WEF Check out my latest episode!

Ian Wilson was chief Librarian and Archivist of Canada from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this as National Archivist, with Roch Carrier the then National Librarian, he developed and led the process to merge the National Archives and National Library into a unified institution. "His distinguished career has included archival and information management, university teaching and government service." In addition, he has published extensively on history, archives, heritage, and information management and has lectured both in Canada and abroad.      "Born in Montreal, Quebec, he attended the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean and obtained a master's degree from Queen's University in 1974. He began his career at Queen's University Archives, later becoming Saskatchewan's Provincial Archivist and Chairman of the Saskatchewan Heritage Advisory Board. He was appointed Archivist of Ontario in 1986, a position he held until 1999." ​ He chaired the Consultative Group on Canadian Archives on behalf of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The Group's report, Canadian Archives - generally known as the "Wilson Report" - published in 1980 - has been described as "a milestone in the history of archival development in Canada."​ He is currently a consultant. ​   I met with Ian at his home in Ottawa to talk about how the merger between Library and Archives is going, about Canada's great Dominion Archivist Arthur Doughty and Canada and its Provinces his monumental, under-appreciated nation-building publishing project, and about the essential role Library and Archives Canada plays, or doesn't play, in cultivating a distinctive national Canadian identity.  

EPISODE SUMMARY ‘Politicians will argue, they will fight over it and they will come up with reasons for not dealing with the past’ It was hoped that the Patten reforms would herald a new start for policing in Northern Ireland, but, argues Denis Bradley, the PSNI remains burdened with its legacy from the old RUC. Denis is a former vice-chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past. He was talking in the latest Forward Together podcast from the Holywell Trust. Listen on for the full episode.

Today’s guest leads one of the most important institutions in that movement. She is Greta Bull, a director of the World Bank and CEO of CGap, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor. In our conversation, Greta describes the progress and also the daunting work ahead. She talks about challenges in cyber-security. She talks about interoperability -- how to address fragmentation within and between markets, since digital finance is all about scale. She explains the role of e-commerce in driving change in various parts of the world. She talks about the potential role of big tech firms, their strengths in leveraging data, and the challenge of working with financial systems that have an analog-to-digital interface. She talks about the need to help people become financially resilient, so that they can weather shocks without falling so far backwards that they can’t recover. She explains where we are in solving the gender gap in financial access, which continues to be very high.

EPISODE SUMMARY In the final review episode of the Forward Together Podcast our invited panel considered the future of Northern Ireland. A panel considered how to engage in a friendly and unthreatening conversation about the future constitutional arrangements for Northern Ireland. This was held as part of a concluding reflection on the Holywell Trust’s series of 35 Forward Together podcast interviews. The panel comprised author Julieann Campbell, the commentator Denis Bradley (who was co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past and former deputy chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board) and Maureen Hetherington of the Junction, plus Paul Gosling who conducted interviews for the podcasts. Listen on to hear the conversation in full as well as snippets taken from some of our earlier podcasts.

EPISODE SUMMARY Dealing with the past A discussion on how to deal with the past was held as part of a concluding reflection on the Holywell Trust’s series of Forward Together podcasts. The panel was author Julieann Campbell, the commentator Denis Bradley (who was co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past and former deputy chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board) and Maureen Hetherington of the Junction, plus Paul Gosling who conducted the interviews for the 35 podcasts. This review focuses on the dealing with the past question raised during the podcast series.

EPISODE SUMMARY Creating a shared and integrated society A discussion on how to create a shared and integrated society was held as part of a concluding reflection on the Holywell Trust’s series of Forward Together podcasts. The panel was author Julieann Campbell, the commentator Denis Bradley (who was co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past and former deputy chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board) and Maureen Hetherington of the Junction, plus Paul Gosling who conducted the interviews for the 35 podcasts. We began by listening to highlights from the recordings from Linda Ervine, Clare Sugden, Simon Hamilton, Maureen Hetherington and Conal McFeely.

REVIEW SUMMARY A discussion on how to strengthen civic society was held as part of a concluding reflection on the Holywell Trust’s series of Forward Together podcasts. The panel was author Julieann Campbell, the commentator Denis Bradley (who was co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past and former deputy chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board) and Maureen Hetherington of the Junction, plus myself as the person who conducted the interviews for the 35 podcasts. We began by listening to highlights from the recordings which was followed by a panel discussion and comments from the audience.

EPISODE SUMMARY Eames-Bradley process ‘should have done more to take the Irish government with it’ – says Denis Bradley The Eames-Bradley process should have engaged more closely with the Irish government and ensured it was on board with the recommendations, says co-chair Denis Bradley in the latest Forward Together podcast. Eames-Bradley – properly called the Consultative Group on the Past – was published more than a decade ago and was intended to provide a way of dealing with the past and the needs and concerns of victims and survivors. Denis says “I do [think the] report itself is an extremely good report. One of the worries when you do a report is that you think, was there a big pothole that we didn't see coming? That hasn't happened. The report has been incredibly good in that sense. The difficulty with the report is that there was only one government involved. I think that was a major mistake and I blame myself to some degree for that.... Remember that was when the Celtic Tiger was beginning to explode. But even without the Celtic Tiger exploding, they [the Irish government] were so cynical around it they were very reluctant to engage. I pleaded with them to be engaged.” The latest podcast interview covers Denis’s reflections on civil society, creating a shared society and the past. A further podcast will be released later this week in which Denis discusses the constitutional future of Northern Ireland.

Panelist: Mayada El-Zoghbi, Lead of Strategy, Research, and Development, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) In low-income countries, disasters induced by climate change are giving rise to new risks, shocks, and stresses among already vulnerable households. Well-designed financial products and services could play a role in increasing low-income families’ resilience by helping them prepare for the uncertain: financial inclusion can facilitate efforts to reduce risks, increase investments, and bounce back from shocks more quickly. Yet, neither the potential of financial products and services for increasing resilience, nor the most effective designs and delivery mechanisms, are fully understood. Closer collaborations between researchers and decision-makers in the resilience space could shed new light on these questions. This seminar will therefore provide a space to discuss effective strategies for building resilience through financial inclusion, and make a call for more research on this urgent challenge. Research by IFPRI and IPA on this topic is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (https://www.gatesfoundation.org/), the CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) (https://ccafs.cgiar.org/), and the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) (https://pim.cgiar.org/).

The focus of the fifth episode in the Leaders in Learning series is one of the most challenging questions that we routinely face: What is the role of formal and informal leadership in creating a learning organization? This episode builds on previous episodes in connecting components of leadership and effective learning organizations, a key connection that we see consistently. The contributing thought leaders for this episode are: - Thom Sinclair, Gateway Academy Team Lead at the Consultative Group to Address the Poor (CGAP) housed at the World Bank - Rob Cartridge, Head of Global Knowledge at Practical Action - Chris Collison, a leading independent KM and OL consultant

My guest this week is Michael Wiegand, Director of the Financial Services for the Poor strategy at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. If you had new ideas for solving the world’s toughest problems, and ample resources to devote to pursuing them, you might do what Bill Gates did when he stepped back from running Microsoft in order to apply what he’d learned there, especially about the power of technology, to problems that have long seemed unsolvable. He and his wife launched their foundation to tackle age-old challenges like eliminating malaria, or combating disease that’s spread by lack of clean water and sanitation, or... achieving worldwide financial inclusion. Anyone who spends time with the developing world’s financial inclusion efforts is in constant contact with the Gates’ Foundation, both directly and indirectly through the many projects and entities they fund. Their efforts are always notable for incisive analysis and insight. Like their counterparts at the Omidyar Network, which works in the same space (and with whom I often work), they have a genius for finding the critical, concrete, doable things that, if accomplished, will set needed change in motion across an entire complex ecosystem, drawing in the efforts and energy of more and more people with leverage on the problem. Michael and I met at the Asian Development Bank summit last winter in Manilla, and then both went on to the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s enormous FinTech Festival, where we recorded this conversation. Anyone interested in emerging markets will find it fascinating, but I also recommend it to everyone who cares about consumer finance, financial protection, inclusion, and technology in the developed world as well. As I’ve said in other shows, developing countries are in many ways ahead of the larger economies in both fintech and regtech. That’s mainly because their consumer financial markets are already mostly digital -- i.e. delivered through the mobile phone -- and therefore easier to regulate through digital means. It’s also because the rush of new, lower-income consumers into these markets makes it critical for regulators to figure out how to protect them. That is going to require new regulatory tools that are already being designed. The World Bank has set the goal that every adult in the world should have financial access -- essentially a “bank” account in their phone -- by 2020. Michael discusses where we stand in that effort -- nearly two billion people short -- and describes Gates’ goals for progress by 2030. He explains what the pathway toward it looks like -- the most critical things that have to happen, including the technology, the infrastructure, and the trust. The pathway starts with payments, since payments innovation like Kenya’s M-Pesa has been the first step in mobile financial access almost everywhere and, once established, makes everything else possible. Michael describes Gates’ Level One project, which includes offering workshops for central banks on how to develop electronic systems that will function safely and well in replacing cash and other forms of payment. (As Michael explains, a key is to use “push” payments initiated by the sender of the money, rather than the more common arrangement in which payees “pull” the funds.) They also have launched the Mojaloop initiative, using blockchains and digital payments with partners like Ripple (Mojaloop is the Swahili word for “one.”)   Michael talks about how phone-based payments activity can accumulate a data footprint for people who lack one, so that the combination of their growing data identity and the mobile delivery channel can enable other financial services to begin to stack on top of the payments capability, in the phone -- lending, savings, insurance, financial management, and the rest. He answers the often-asked question of whether any of this can work, when most people now do have phones, but not yet smartphones. He cites a McKinsey Global Institute study estimating that digital financial services could add $3.7 trillion to the GDP of developing countries by 2025. He also talks about the disproportionately positive effects of all this on women, including how the men in their own lives view them -- a key focus of Gates’ work. We also talked about digital identity in the context of the Know Your Customer, or KYC, anti-money laundering rules that create such barriers for people trying to come into the financial system without traditional identity documents. (Here is my episode with Sanjay Jain about this point, on the India Stack and Aadhaar card.) Again, if you think these developments aren’t relevant to the United States, ask yourself this: how are we going to protect consumers’ financial data from cyberthreats, when we’ve built our identity verification around outdated paper-based systems like social security numbers -- which are now widely for sale on the dark web? We too will have to move to protectable digital identity over time, and we’ll learn a lot from the advanced efforts underway now in other parts of the world. The Gates work, again often teamed up with others like the Omidyar Network, includes helping regulators innovate, themselves. He talks about the Regtech for Regulators initiative, or R2A, that’s using technology to help several countries solve their main regulatory pain points, with solutions ranging from digitized AML to creating a complaint chatbot on consumers’ mobile phones. He talks about funding the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, or AFI, which consists of the central banks and financial regulators of the Global South (here’s my podcast with AFI’s leader, Alfred Hannig.) Michael talks about how Gates chooses which countries to work with as learning laboratories, where they can develop lessons that may apply everywhere. He also talks about supporting C-GAP, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, under the umbrella of the World Bank’s financial inclusion work. And also the Better Than Cash Alliance, under the umbrella of the United Nations. I could go on -- again, they are touching nearly all the important innovations underway. There’s a genius here for figuring out what needs to happen, including what needs to happen first, and second and third; learning through small, concrete experiments; and then seeding and building coalitions or where needed, new institutions, to make progress actually...happen. It’s breathtakingly ambitious, and yet, it’s practical. Here’s the thing. This is not an old-style charitable effort to chip away at a problem that will always be there. It’s an actual effort to solve it. In other shows I’ve talked about “wicked problems” -- problems too complex to be solved -- and how sometimes technology solves them. That’s the Gates vision on the problem of financial inclusion. More for our listeners We have more great shows coming up. We’ll talk with the CEO’s of two very innovative community banks -- Bob Rivers of Eastern Bank and Mike Butler of Radius bank. I also have three wonderful episodes I recorded at this year’s LendIt conference in San Francisco. One is with Jim Richards, recorded just a few days after he retired from his role as global head of Anti-Money Laundering for Wells Fargo. Plus I had an incredibly fascinating conversation with my friend Greg Kidd of Global ID. And we’ll have an overview of new research done jointly by LendUp and Experian, on how to improve financial access through credit reporting. We also will have several members of Congress in the coming weeks, which I’m really looking forward to. And we’ll have a show with the head of innovation at the CFTC, Dan Gorfine, who is going to talk about WHY it’s so hard for government to change -- some of the barriers that, while well-intentioned, may need to be rethought for today’s fast-changing technology environment. I hope to see you at upcoming events including: Women Corporate Directors Global Summit, May 10, New York, NY Comply 2018, May 16, New York, NY Financial Conduct Authority AML TechSprint, May 22-25, London, UK (By invitation only) American Bankers Association Payments Forum, June 1, Washington, DC CFSI’s Emerge, June 6, Los Angeles, CA North Dakota Bankers Convention, June 11-12, Fargo. ND American Bankers Association Regulatory Compliance Conference, June 26, Nashville, TN As always, please remember to review Barefoot Innovation on iTunes, and sign up to get emails that bring you the newest podcast, newsletter, and blog posts, at jsbarefoot.com. Again, follow me on twitter and facebook.   And please send in your “buck a show” to keep Barefoot Innovation going! Until next time, keep innovating! Support our Podcast Subscribe Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you!

Bruce Lourie is one of Canada’s leading environmental thinkers and co-author of the bestselling books Toxin Toxout: Getting Harmful Chemicals Out of Our Bodies and Our World and Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health. He is President of Ivey Foundation, a private charitable foundation, a Director of the Ontario Power Authority and a Director of the San Francisco-based Consultative Group on Biological Diversity.  He is an honorary director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and has founded several non-profit and for-profit organizations in Canada. Rick Smith, Ph.D. Dr. Rick Smith has been Executive Director of Environmental Defence since June 2003.  Prior to joining Environmental Defence, Rick was, from 1996, Canadian Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and served as Acting United Kingdom Director for IFAW in 2001. He received his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Guelph in 1999 for his study of a unique and endangered subspecies of freshwater harbour seal in northern Québec, which he completed in cooperation with a nearby community of Cree hunters.  He has authored numerous articles in both the scientific and popular press on environmental and animal welfare issues.  Originally from Montreal, Rick now lives in Toronto with his wife Jennifer and their son Zachary.  

Ken Wilson On the Resilience of Connected Diversities and the Backing of Indigenous Innovation Dr. Ken Wilson serves as executive director of The Christensen Fund, a private foundation established in 1957 and currently focusing on sustaining the “biocultural”—the rich but neglected adaptive interweave of people and place, culture, and ecology. The Fund backs indigenous initiatives to restore relationships between traditional lands, living cultures, and community well being in ways that are not “preservationist” but instead seek to support revitalization and resilience: bottom up processes of innovation and adaptive change. Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with Ken about his work as a philanthropist focused on indigenous cultures. Ken Wilson, PhD Born in Malawi with a life spread rather across the world, Ken Wilson studied zoology at Oxford and anthropology at University College London where his doctorate focused on indigenous knowledge, health, and human ecology in the agro-pastoral arid savannahs and woodlands of Southern Zimbabwe (a community with whom he is still closely involved). In 2002, after nine years at the Ford Foundation in Africa and then as deputy to the Vice President for Education, Media, Arts, and Culture in New York, Ken was the first non-family executive director of The Christensen Fund. Ken lives in San Francisco and has played a variety of roles in international philanthropy, including as past president of International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, and on such boards as the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity and the Seva Foundation. He currently chairs the steering committee of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and is a board member of the Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Ian Johnson was Former World Bank's Vice President for Sustainable Development (ESSD) and has over thirty years experience in economic development. He spent twenty-six years at the World Bank, starting as an energy economist and financial analyst and working through increasing levels of responsibility was, for his last eight years, Vice President for Sustainable Development and, for five years, also Chairman of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Prior to joining the World Bank, he was an economist with the British Government and he spent five years in Bangladesh working with the United Nations and a non-government organization. Since leaving the World Bank Ian Johnson has been an advisor to the government of Chile, a member of the Swedish Commission on Climate Change, senior advisor to GLOBE and chair of its Ecosystems Services Panel, as well as consultant to a number of international organizations.

In February 2009, Deconstructing Dinner descended upon Edmonton for a week of local and global food education. Every year, the University of Alberta hosts International Week, the largest annual extracurricular educational event on campus. International Week "fosters global citizenship through engagement with today's most pressing issues". In its 24th year, the theme was Hungry for Change: Transcending Feast, Famine and Frenzy. Deconstructing Dinner's Jon Steinman delivered two lectures throughout the week and was invited to be a part of an evening panel on the topic of biofuels. In November 2007, the show aired its Biofuel Boom series and this formed the basis for Jon's panel presentation. This broadcast features recordings of the panel from February 4, 2009. Voices David Bressler, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Alberta (Edmonton, AB) - David's general area of research is the industrial application of chemical, thermal and biological systems for the catalytic conversion of conventional biomass streams to platform chemicals, fuels and value-addedd commodities. Biofuels are a major focus of his research. David is also the Chair of the Management Committee of Agri-Food Discovery Place which is the department's pilot facility. Alex McCalla, Professor Emeritus in Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California at Davis (Davis, CA) - Alex is an expert in international trade and has directed the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department at the World Bank, has chaired the Technical Advisory Committee of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and was a founding member and co-convenor of the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium. Since graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1966, Alex has served in many roles at the University of California at Davis. Jon Steinman, Producer/Host, Deconstructing Dinner (Nelson, BC) - Outside of his role with Deconstructing Dinner, Jon also sits on the board of the Kootenay Country Store Co-operative and is involved in Community Food Matters - a coalition of Nelson-area residents who are inspired to foster a more food-secure community.