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Grameen Foundation, KfW and CARE’s Access Africa Fund Invest in World’s First 100% Mobile Microfinance Institution
Grameen Foundation, KfW and CARE's Access Africa Fund announced they have each purchased a 25 percent stake in Musoni Kenya, the first microfinance institution to provide financial services to the poor entirely via mobile phones. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, it provides microloans largely to people who are underserved by the formal financial sector. This investment will help Musoni Kenya grow its operations, deepen its penetration in rural areas where financial inclusion is lowest, and pave the way for it to receive a license to accept savings deposits from the Central Bank of Kenya.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- microfinance
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Obama turns to private sector to feed world’s poor
WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama on Friday reached out to the private sector in hopes of lifting 50 million people in the developing world from poverty, as wealthy nations grapple with a budget crunch.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Owning a mobile phone does not move you to the middle class
James Ogule, who lives in Namugongo, a Kampala surburb, thinks the vendors selling matooke (plantains) by the road to his house should not be considered middle class.The vendors spend more than $2 (sh5,200) a day and Ogule who works with a government regulatory body thinks equating a middle class to sh5,200 a day is a pity.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Can mobile banking boost financial inclusion in Nigeria?
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with around 167 million people, mobile banking has been relatively slow to take off. This is, however, changing. Last year the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued the first operating licences to 11 companies to provide mobile banking services.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Uganda’s Middle Class Grows As Poverty Dips
Kampala — The number of absolutely poor Ugandans has dropped to 7.5 million (24.5%) from 8.5 million (31.1%) as of 2010, a Ministry of Finance status report released in Kampala shows.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Africa Growth Isn’t Meeting Needs of Young, Poor: Report
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia—Foreign investment and increasing exports are propelling high economic growth rates in Africa, but haven't established enough jobs to substantially reduce poverty or meet the high expectations of the continent's large number of youths and poor, according to an annual economic progress report released Friday at the World Economic Forum's meeting here.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Social Innovators in Africa Awarded
Five African social innovators have been included in the World Economic Forum's list of Social Entrepreneurs of the Year 2012. The awards were announced at the Ethiopian summit of the WEF by Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman of WEF.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The bank of SMS
AFRICA is the continent where “mobile money”—monetary transactions on mobile phones—is by far the most advanced. According to a new survey of financial habits by the Gates Foundation, the World Bank and Gallup, in 20 countries more than 10% of adults said that they had used mobile money at some point in the previous 12 months; 15 of those countries were in Africa.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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