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Iko-toilet’ Wins Global Recognition
Until recently, public toilets in Nairobi and Kenya’s urban centres were an eyesore, dreaded answers to calls of nature. The dilapidated facilities were a no-go zone for many who preferred walking into hotels or offices for relief. Some private ventures came in to ameliorate the situation by providing clean, convenient facil...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Out of Africa: A Continent of Entrepreneurs
We’re used to seeing Africa as poor and helpless, and it certainly has its problems. However, it’s also a hotbed of entrepreneurship, where phone-fixers, DVD hawkers, clothes sellers and internet start-ups are thriving. MANCHÁN MAGAN visits Mozambique and finds a country more suited to investment than pity IT WAS the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio walks through a bustling African market in the movie Blood Diamond that finally o...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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MIT Start-up Focuses on Sanitation Needs of Poor
Some 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation and a small start-up launched by MIT students is aiming to do its part to help address the global problem. Sanergy provides low-cost sanitation facilities in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, and converts the waste to salable byproducts. "Our goal is to make sanitation hygienic, accessible and affordable for the 8 million people in Kenyan slums," said David Auerbach, a co-founder and MBA candidate at MIT. Sanergy started ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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One In 3 Africans Now Middle Class, Report Finds
One in three Africans is middle class, a rising group of consumers to rival those of China and India, researchers have found (pdf). Record numbers of people in Africa own houses and cars, use mobile phones and the internet and send their children to private schools and foreign universities, according to the African Development ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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African Economies ’Must Go Global’
By Justine Gerardy (AFP) CAPE TOWN - Africa must accelerate links to global markets and improve competitiveness to sustain the strong growth expected this year, experts at the World Economic Forum on Africa said on Wednesday. African economies weathered the global economic storm in 2008 and have since resumed strong growth -- a positive showing which paradoxically highlighted Africa’s weak presence in global financial markets, said Jennifer Blake, head of WEF’s compe...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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’Drop out of school’: Does That Advice Work in South Africa?
By Osiame Molefe Cape Town, South Africa Like many other black South African parents, my folks were non-negotiable on one thing: that my siblings and I, at the very minimum, go to university and graduate. They worked slavishly, too, to make it happen. I’m sure many other South African parents held and continue to hold the ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Uganda: Understanding Consumer Protection in Microfinance
Lately, the Microfinance industry has come under the spot-light with critics arguing that microfinance institutions drifted away from their core and initial mission of working to uplift the poor out of poverty through micro loans. Critics argue that the entire microfinance business is now commercialized. This is what has probably resulted into draconian recovery methods; forexample in Mexico where loan officers take children after their parents are unable to make microfinance loans; to India ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Improving the Lot of Small Enterprises
To address the problems facing small enterprises, especially the micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the Nigeria MSME Project, a pilot initiative of the Federal Government and the World Bank in Abia, Kaduna and Lagos states, have come to the rescue. The trouble with small enterprises will always attract discussions. If you ask the small business owner what the trouble is, he will tell you it is funding. But he is wrong. True, funding is a problem, but it is not all the ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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