News and Stories

Find out how we ‘counted her in’ this International Women’s Day, meet a woman leading the way in Indigenous cultural tourism and find out about our research in the Philippines.

Meet our newest team members on the ground, hear how we wowed the crowds in Solomon Islands and check out our impact figures from the last 20 years.

Our September 2023 newsletter is a special anniversary edition where we celebrate the ‘stars of Good Return’ and highlight the key issues we will be tackling over the next years of our journey.

In our latest blog we highlight the extensive journeys that our participants, coaches and the team at Good Return complete across the Asia Pacific to achieve our ultimate aim: to bring the excluded into the economy.

A successful initiative for Indigenous women entrepreneurs is set to expand nationally from its home in Western Australia’s remote Kimberley region, elevating the social and economic transformation of Indigenous women across the country.

The first of its kind, the Maganda Makers Business Club has proven a successful model for Indigenous women in business to network, build skills and grow as entrepreneurs. New funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF) will enable the initiative to grow and reach even more women, with expansion into Queensland and the Northern Territory on the horizon for the club which began following a collaboration between Kimberley Jiyigas, Menzies Foundation and Good Return.

Read Good Return’s response to the new Australian Aid and Development Policy.

Overall, Good Return was pleased to see how the new policy actively responded to contemporary problems facing our region including climate change, gender inequality, disability and poverty. Good Return was particularly pleased to see that several recommendations from the Good Return submission to the DFAT Development Finance Review in September 2022 were influential in the final Review.

However, moving forward there are still areas that must be enhanced and improved. Good Return considers it critical that Australia’s international development policy continue to be centred on our responsibility to address humanitarian concerns and promote human rights in our region.

Australia's eagerly awaited new international development policy was launched last Tuesday.

Critically, the policy was underpinned by the 'Development Finance Review' which called for an enhanced focus on "blended finance".

In a timely piece published by OnImpact Media, Good Return’s Hannah McNicol calls upon Shane Nichols, CEO of Good Return, to clarify:
- What is blended finance?
- What does it look like in practice?
- And what can it do for urgent international development outcomes?

Shane concisely and practically breaks down “blended finance” and its potential for catalytic impact through the example of Good Returns own Impact Investment Fund.

'It is high time we effectively support micro-entrepreneurs across the Asia-Pacific with innovative, appropriate, and contextualised digital tools. When this happens, we can only imagine what these women will achieve'.

In the piece, Good Return’s Meldy Pelejo explores how rising digital literacy paired with innovative technology solutions can allow micro-entrepreneurship to overcome traditional barriers to starting and sustaining a business.

Congratulations to the wider 'My Money Tracker' team at Good Return for the launch of the My Money Tracker application in the Phillipines!

Today is the United Nations Day for MSMEs - a dynamic event dedicated to celebrating the crucial role of Micro-, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs)!

UN MSME Day is also an important date on the Good Return calendar as many of the groups we work with are owners of, or work in MSMEs. At Good Return, we strive to enable women, the marginalised and their families to access opportunity and build financial security. We do this through access to responsible finance to start or grow businesses, in addition to financial and business training.

To mark the occasion, we have decided to celebrate (and share!) the timely research work our team led on understanding the barriers women face to building SMSEs in our region.

Read the full blog to see the key findings from our two research reports: ‘Understanding the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs to growing a business in Cambodia’ and ‘Business barriers faced by rural women entrepreneurs in Nepal.

Good Return is celebrating our 20th anniversary this September.

To mark the occasion, we are recognising 20 individuals who have shaped our story and have been vital to delivering our work and impact.🎉

Our fourth 'Star of Good Return' is Sandy Carvajal. From fond memories of the The Laos Rural Livelihood Program to supporting microfinance partners in the Philippines, read our special edition blog that highlights Sandy's Good Return journey here.

In the uplifting pages of Good Return’s founder, Guy Winship’s, memoir it details how Guy wanted to use Cambodian puppet art, The Sbek Thom, to deliver Good Return’s messages in a way that was both appropriate and culturally specific. To this day, at Good Return, we continue to strive to find new and innovative forms of communication to achieve our ultimate goal: to enable women, the marginalised and their families to access opportunity and build financial security.

In this blog learn how the Lets Talk Money campaign flourished in Phase 1 and has now moved to Phase 2.

‘Girls become women, women become mothers and mothers are leaders…it is key for young women, in both urban and remote areas, to learn how to manage and save their own money to both build their confidence and improve their living standards’.

In this blog, we take a moment to highlight one of our latest learners, Channin. Channin recently graduated from a joint financial education project between Good Return and the National Bank of Cambodia for members of the Girl Guides Association of Cambodia (CGAC) to become a financial capability facilitator (coach).

“This financial coaching program made me realise how important it is for me and for other people with disabilities to be aware of mindful spending, life goal setting, and financial management, which can positively impact on our financial well-being.”

In our latest Learner Spotlight, Arunremfa Lim, Good Return’s CAFE Asia-Pacific Program Officer, interviews Mrs. Khun Vaneth, one of our outstanding CAFE (financial capability) coaches from Batheay District, Kampong Cham province.

In our latest blog, we celebrate Good Return's four new local Cambodian partners - which are organisations of people with disabilities (OPDs): Women and Children Disabled Persons Forum Kampong Cham (WCDFK), Phnom Penh Center for Independent Living (PPCIL), Association Music for People with Disabilities (AMPD) and Samrong Tong Disabled Persons Federation (SRTF).

For the team at Good Return, these partnerships are something to celebrate - as they represent our wider commitments to both disability inclusion and a longer term process of localisation.

In our April 2023 newsletter, we reveal the newest location of our My Money Tracker app, shine the spotlight on a Maganda Maker star and share the energy of one of our borrowers.

We were thrilled to see that Good Return’s Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Anvesha Khandelwal Punjani's, piece on innovation in Indonesia’s chilli sector was published by Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs - ANDE especially to mark the important date of IWD 2023!

With the theme for IWD being ‘Innovation and technology for gender equality’ the piece is extremely timely.

Co-authored by Tiurma Veronica Siregar and Alexandra Birch, this piece explores the following contradiction: that despite women being crucial to the large and profitable chilli sector in Indonesia, they are rarely recognised as a formal part of the economy. This exclusion means they cannot benefit from financial independence, owning their own land or growing their own businesses.

The piece draws upon a recent report published by Good Return and partner CROWDE, with support from DFAT that identifies a complex web of social and legal barriers that limit the active participation of women in Indonesia’s economy.

With International Women’s Day marking a crucial date on our calendar at Good Return, there is no better time to celebrate the inspiring women we work with at Good Return. In this blog, Tou Chandara and Lim Arunremfa take a moment to highlight one of our learners, Chantha, and hear more about how Good Return’s financial education program has assisted her to better manage her business, living situation and gain new knowledge about budget planning, saving, and proper spending.

We were thrilled to see Good Return published in Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs - ANDE in a timely piece that explores the economic and social situation for communities in the Mount Everest region of Nepal this winter.

Good Return’s Hannah McNicol, Mimu Raghubanshi and Mochan Bhattarai urged our network to reflect on our regional neighbours in Nepal this festive period and highlight three complex issues underpinning the current economic situation including financial literacy, gendered barriers to women’s economic empowerment and lack of access to capital.

ANDE East and Southeast Asia recently published a blog written by Good Return's Maneth Pol, Programme and Partnership Officer in the CAFE Team, where she shares her expertise on women’s economic empowerment in Cambodia.

Maneth reflects on the impacts of financial literacy and capability training that go beyond accessing finance, money management skills and building savings. In reality, programs that strive to foster women's economic empowerment build so much more: intergenerational legacies, independence, leadership and can even challenge gender norms.

How do you measure changes in women’s economic empowerment?

How do you monitor a woman’s confidence to start a business or her financial capability?

These are just a few of the fascinating questions we ask Anvesha Khandelwal Punjani, Good Return’s Impact and Effectiveness Manager, in our latest blog. Together with Anvesha we explore the importance of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) in international development.