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The rapid growth of foreign private lending to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the past several years has led to a surprising reversal of roles between government-owned development agencies and private lenders. Development institutions [International Financial Institutions (IFIs)] are concentrating their loans in the strongest MFIs, leaving private lenders to look for opportunities among smaller, riskier borrowers. Development institutions are “crowding” private lenders out of the best MFIs.

Access justice is a fundamental right recognised in international law. Children, generally without legal capacity, do not have the ability to act directly. Nevertheless, international human rights protection mechanisms offer a new opportunity to act upon violations of their rights and the creation of a specific complaint mechanism for children before the CRC Committee represents one of the most important developments, as it was created especially for children. The recent decision before the CRC Committee on climate change which was brought by a group of 15 children is a landmark case in this field. For the first time, a group of children submitted an international complaint showing that they are real agents of change, and not passive victims. Their message is powerful, in line with their actions and growing movement. Since 2018, they organised several climate strikes all around the world and the one of 2019 was considered as one of the largest demonstrations in history. Children and young people have also filed several petitions at the national level. They are acting as leaders, raising their voices to secure respect for the rights of children and protect the environment. The adoption of the CRC 25 years ago encouraged the development of a new conception of childhood: children are not only seen as vulnerable objects in need of protection, but as rights holders and agents in their own lives. The new complaint mechanism before the CRC Committee, in particular, gives children a real opportunity to take action for themselves and for others, highlighting their growing role in the field of environmental justice, and more generally, peaceful activism and advocacy.

The literature on global value chains and global production networks suggests limited entrepreneurial opportunities for small firms from developing countries. However, in networks power can accrue not only to central players (such as lead firms), but also to “marginal” players that can play a brokering role. Brokers get their power from connecting parties that would otherwise not be connected and firms that can bridge structural holes may well have impact beyond what would be suggested by their size. This chapter theorizes and provides evidence for global entrepreneurship through brokerage; when entrepreneurs recognize business opportunities in one context, can identify resources from another context, and can connect the two. Global entrepreneurship through brokerage can take place any time when entrepreneurs see opportunities that can be brokered between any two countries, but it takes a specific form in developing countries. A global entrepreneur can earn rents by bridging the gap between the resources of developed countries and the opportunities in emerging markets. This study examines a South African company providing low-cost housing with funds from socially responsible institutional investors, mainly from North America. The very different institutional conditions of the two contexts facilitate an understanding of how this type of entrepreneurship takes place.

Political risk is a complex phenomenon. This complexity has incentivized scholars to take a piecemeal approach to understanding it. Nearly all scholarship has targeted a single type of political risk (expropriation) and, within this risk, a single type of firm (MNCs) and a single type of strategic mechanism through which that risk may be mitigated (entry mode). Yet “political risk” is actually a collection of multiple distinct risks that affect the full spectrum of foreign firms, and these firms vary widely in their capabilities for resisting and evading these risks. We offer a unified theoretical model that can simultaneously analyze: the three main types of political risk (war, expropriation, and transfer restrictions); the universe of private foreign investors (direct investors, portfolio equity investors, portfolio debt investors, and commercial banks); heterogeneity in government constraints; and the three most relevant strategic capabilities (information, exit, and resistance). We leverage the variance among foreign investors to identify effective firm strategies to manage political risk. By employing a simultaneous and unified model of political risk, we also find counterintuitive insights on the way governments trade off between risks and how investors use other investors as risk shields.

Within the past few years, a new phenomenon has taken place among the world's leading microfinance institutions (MFIs) – entry into new capital markets through initial public offerings (IPOs). “Going public” launches MFIs into a new frontier, not only presenting challenges but also providing new opportunities for the institutions and the clients they serve.