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IDB, Oikocredit, Incofin and Calvert Foundation Back Credit Cooperative in Ecuador
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has closed a $9 million syndicated loan with Jardin Azuayo, a community-based savings and loan cooperative in Ecuador . The loan will fund the co-op’s Credits for Community Development project, which channels funds to municipalities, community organizations and other local entities to finance improvements in social infrastructure such as schools and roads. Th...
- Region
- Latin America
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With Mobile Technology Vodafone and the U.N. Improve Health in Brazil’s Remote Communities
The Vodafone Foundation and the United Nations are working together again on a mobile initiative for social good --this time in Brazil and with an eye on ...
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- Latin America
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In A Shift, Cubans Savor Working for Themselves
BAUTA, Cuba - Marisela Álvarez spends much of the day bent over a single electric burner in her small outdoor kitchen. Her knees are killing her. Her red hair smells of cooking oil. "I feel useful; I’m independent," said Ms. Álvarez, who opened a small cafe in November at her home in this scruffy town 25 miles from the capital, Havana. "When you sit down at the end of the day and look at how much you have made, you feel satisfied." Eagerly, warily, Cubans are tak...
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- Latin America
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Colombia: For the Poor, a New Way to Protect Against Disaster
BARRANQUILLA, Colombia - Before a sales team for Liberty Mutual fanned out into a crime-infested slum to sell insurance, the venders bowed their heads, asking god to bless their work and protect them from thieves. A ramshackle neighborhood where horse carts ply the streets and the floors of many houses are made of dirt might seem an odd place to peddle insurance. After all, insurance companies have historically ignored the poor. But the Liberty team was offering something new to l...
- Region
- Latin America
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Jamaicans May Bank on a Mobile Future
JAMAICA can choose a mobile phone-based financial services delivery system which targets those persons who currently do not have easy access to the established banking network. Carl Rosenquist, a Chartered Information Technology Professional with the British Computer Society, was one of several industry experts trumpeting the development during the Mobile Financial Services Conference at the Terra Nova All Suites Hotel in Kingston in December, which aimed to develo...
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- Latin America
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$2.5 Million Prize for Transforming Banking Sector in Haiti
SEATTLE and PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced today that Haitian mobile operator Digicel won a $2.5 million award from the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI). Digicel was recognized for being the first to launch a mobile money service in Haiti, Tcho Tcho Mobile, that meets the competition’s stringent criteria. This award,...
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- Latin America
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To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor
The city of Rio de Janeiro is infamous for the fact that one can look out from a precarious shack on a hill in a miserable favela and see practically into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium. Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world. Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic ineq...
- Region
- Latin America
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Fighting Poverty Can Save Energy, Nicaragua Project Shows
In two small villages on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast, a project to improve electricity service had a remarkable side benefit-household energy use actually dropped nearly 30 percent. When efficient compact-fluorescent (CFL) lightbulbs were added to the mix, energy savings surpassed 40 percent. The effort cut costs and brought longer hours of daily electricity service to the people of ...
- Region
- Latin America
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