In December 2010, I first made contact with Dr. David Gaus, who had recently been named “Regional Social Entrepreneur of the Year for Latin America” by the Schwab Foundation. As founder of the sister NGOs Andean Health & Development (AHD) in the USA and SALUDESA in Ecuador, Dr. Gaus received this award for his pioneering work in bringing quality health care to rural and vulnerable populations and training family doctors through a hospital in the remote town of Pedro Vicente Maldonado. Despite already having one sustainable rural hospital, he planned to construct a second hospital to expand health services to other underserved areas of the country, and we at the MIF were in a position to provide additional funding to complement the donations that he had secured. 

Por Ignacio Fernández y Xoan Fernández. 

Gran parte de los recicladores en nuestra región todavía vive con menos de 1,25$US al día. Al mismo tiempo, gracias a ellos, se recolecta entre el 50% y el 90% de los materiales reciclables utilizados en la industria. Sin embargo, a pesar de cumplir con esta función tan clave en nuestras sociedades, recolectando residuos reciclables de manera informal, procedentes en su gran mayoría de botaderos, rellenos sanitarios y vías públicas, estos recicladores siguen marginalizados en nuestra sociedad. 

This month, the Multilateral Investment Fund became the first development finance institution (DFI) to launch a program for Social Impact Bonds (SIBs). With this program, we hope to put countries in Latin America and the Caribbean on the map among an elite group of countries that are testing this innovative social sector finance instrument.

Peru’s Department of Cajamarca, with a population of approximately 1.5 million people, is located in the northernmost region of the country’s Andes Mountains. Cajamarca is one of the poorest areas of the country with an extreme poverty rate as high as 21.3% and an overall poverty rate of 52.5%, more than double the national average which is estimated at 25.8%. Insufficient, or non-existent, access to basic services such as water and sanitation, basic healthcare and energy is common for most low-income families in the region.