UNDP
UNCDF

Credit Bureau Of The Future

This project is a collaboration between the Sierra Leone government, UNDP, UNCDF and KIVA and aims to help about seven million citizens in the country (making a total of 80% of the citizens of Sierra Leone) who do not have any credit history or formal identity, gain access to financial services. To date, there is only one credit bureau in Sierra Leone that covers 2,000 people - which is less than 1 percent of the population. Kiva will use the system to record the identities of citizens, and keep these identities on the distributed ledger while using the information to generate credit history for customers. Customers will own and control the data. The fact that they do not bank makes it worse since they cannot have future credit histories. The histories for digital identification will be generated from formal and informal financial institutions. The system works via a mobile application or through a local agent. It operates by sending a signed verifiable claim about a loan to a borrower when a lender makes a loan on the platform. The borrower will accept the claim and post it to their private credit ledger in their digital Kiva wallet. The lender will also send a verifiable claim about a repayment that the borrower approves and then posts to their ledger. This way, all credit events can be captured in a single ledger and the digital wallet will be controlled by the individual.

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February 17, 2022

Bike Ambulances to improve Emergency Obstetric Care in Rural Areas

Maternal mortality and morbidity rates remain high in Cote d’Ivoire. It is estimated that more than six women out of a thousand are dying while delivering birth, while 0.7% of the women of childbearing age have fistula in the country (MICS, 2016). While the strengthening of the health system is taking place, women in the country, especially in the rural area, stay vulnerable to the high risk of maternal death and morbidity. From behavioral perspectives, the barriers that leads to the three delays–(1) deciding to seek care; (2) identifying and reaching a medical facility; (3) receiving adequate and appropriate treatment may include the following (Cichowitz et al., 2018): Factors related to the first delay: social norms (community prefers to deliver at home), limited transportation and health care services at night, and negative experience in hospitals in the past (lack of trust). Factors related to the second delay of reaching a medical facility: a lack of available transportation, long travel times, and perception of high medical costs (walking 36.5%, car 34.6%, bus 13.5%, and motorcycle 13.5% in case of a study in Tanzania). In this context, this rapid prototyping initiative seeks to develop a new low-cost, safe transportation for women to prevent maternal mortality and morbidity in rural areas, by tackling the barriers that often lead to delay of emergency obstetric care (EmOC). It also aims to collect and utilize the GPS data/information of the bike ambulances to enable regional hospitals and the government to make better decisions in providing care, utilize hospital ambulances efficiently, and enhance communication between the care-seeker and care-provider.
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