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AfDB Launches Microfinance Capacity Building Fund
The African Development Bank, in partnership with the government of Spain, has launched the Microfinance Capacity Building Fund - a multiyear effort to increase technical capacity building in the finance sector for the benefit of poor and low-income people in Africa. With a special focus on women and rural areas, the MCBF aims to increase transparency in A...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Southampton Students Bring Solar Lights to Madagascar
Families in Madagascar are benefiting from solar-powered lighting through a project set up by Southampton students. The University of Southampton’s SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) group set up a finance scheme to reduce the cost of the lights for rural families. The Right Light scheme has meant 98 families have reduced their use of kerosene lighting. Student Michael Austin said the scheme showed how students were "creating positive change in the...
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Encouraging Agricultural Efficiency through Microfinance: Implications for Food Security
Maybe those that work in development are sick of hearing this little factoid, but for those who are out of the loop, let’s repeat it just one more time: the majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas. As expected, many of these are highly dependent on agriculture, whether or not it is their primary economic activity. So if they live in communities dedicated to agricultural production, then why is it that many of them still suffer from hunger? To begin with, their own...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Silicon Savanna: Mobile Phones Transform Africa
The buzz at Pivot25, a conference for mobile-phone software developers and investors held this June, is all about the future of money. Ben Lyon, the 24-year-old business-development VP of Kopo Kopo, wants $250,000 to produce his app for shops to process payments made by text message. Paul Okwalinga, 28, describes his money app - called M-Shop, it allows you to buy travel tickets and takeout via mobile phone - as "not reinventing the wheel but pimping it." Kamal Budhabhatti, 35, claims Elma, t...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The New Microfinancing: SMS-Based Layaway to the Rescue
Microfinance , the Nobel Prize-winning initiative to turn aspiring Third World entrepreneurs into self-sustaining CEOs, has long been the only game in town when it comes to offering developing world entrepreneurs a viable and sustainable form of funding. But other financial instruments may work just as well--if not better--at supplying small farmers around the world with capital and a path out of poverty. ...
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Improving the Quality of Rwanda?s Milk, While Turning a Profit
Good, quality milk is one of the most nutrient-rich natural beverages available. Containing a healthy dose of at least nine essential vitamins and minerals, milk can be, quite literally, a lifesaver for populations suffering from an extremely nutrient-poor diet in developing countries. Yet in Rwanda , where an estimated 90% of the population is still dependent on agriculture, and ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Omidyar, Indigo Trust to Fund Social Innovation Center in Nigeria
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and LONDON, July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Omidyar Network and The Indigo Trust announced today their support and intent to fund the Co-Creation Hub in Lagos, Nigeria. The Hub is a non-profit, social enterprise centered around a shared work space where stakeholders from multiple walks of Nigerian life come together to collaboratively create tech-based solutions that address social challenges facing Nigerian society. It will be Nigeria’s fi...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Switching On: Africa’s Vast New Tech Opportunity
This article was taken from the August 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired’s articles in print before they’re posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online . In 2011, visitors to Africa looking for war, famine and pestilence have to dig a lot deeper than in the past. At Nairo...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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