Panel 1 — Finan­cial Ser­vices to the Poor: Meet­ing New Challenges

Descrip­tion

An esti­mated 78 per­cent of the world’s poor­est do not have a bank account and oper­ate within the cash econ­omy. As the devel­op­ment world gears itself to pro­vide finan­cial ser­vices to this group, the cur­rent tools and mech­a­nisms have to be adapted as well. Where micro­fi­nance once meant the pro­vi­sion of small scale loans, its mean­ing has now evolved to include sav­ings, insur­ance, and other forms of finan­cial ser­vices. This panel will explore these new finan­cial ser­vices in a mul­ti­di­men­sional way; by ascer­tain­ing the needs of the finan­cially excluded, dis­cussing new prod­ucts and ser­vices, and deter­min­ing the effec­tive­ness of these ser­vices through empir­i­cal evidence.

Panel 2 — Har­ness­ing Youth Energy for Development

Descrip­tion

Devel­op­ing coun­tries and coun­tries in cri­sis (like Spain or Greece today), have often 40 to 60% of youth unem­ploy­ment. Some young peo­ple drop school early, and even uni­ver­sity grad­u­ates can take up to 5 or 6 years to find their first job. This is a human­i­tar­ian dis­as­ter, and can induce insta­bil­ity and vio­lence in some coun­tries (demon­stra­tions, but also crim­i­nal­ity, or polit­i­cal insta­bil­ity). Yet, those youth are a tremen­dous asset for their coun­tries, if we man­age to give them oppor­tu­ni­ties to serve and prove their skills and will to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of their communities.

Panel 3 — Chal­lenges and Oppor­tu­ni­ties to Advance Health and Devel­op­ment at the Grassroots

Descrip­tion

Improv­ing the health and well-being of peo­ple liv­ing in under­served com­mu­ni­ties is inte­gral to pro­mot­ing the end of devel­op­ment. In this panel ses­sion, guest speak­ers will dis­cuss chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties in devel­op­ing inno­v­a­tive grass­roots health ini­tia­tives and pro­mot­ing civic engage­ment and com­mu­nity devel­op­ment. Pan­elists will share insights on mar­ket­ing and advanc­ing health at the grass­roots level in the face of lim­ited resources, con­flict, cri­sis, and other dif­fi­cult local cir­cum­stances. They will dis­cuss work on devel­op­ing and scal­ing suc­cess­ful health inter­ven­tions that tar­get improv­ing repro­duc­tive, mater­nal, neona­tal, and child health; com­bat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­ble and non-communicable dis­eases; and enhanc­ing peo­ples’ qual­ity of life and own­er­ship over health at the local level.