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A Company Prospers by Saving Poor People’s Lives
It all started with mosquito nets. Or, no, with guinea worm filters. Or, before that, with a million yards of wool in the mountains of Sweden. Or, taken back another generation, to uniforms for hotel and supermarket workers. There are plenty of charitable foundations and public agencies devoted to helping the world’s poor, many with instantly recognizable names like Unicef or the Gates Foundation. But private companies with that as their sole focus...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Microfinance bank pledges commitment to SMEs
T HE Crowned Eagle Microfinance Bank Limited has made a commitment to add more value to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Speaking at the pre-launching news conference of the bank recently at Ikorodu, the President/Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Mr. Ben Tai Ojomo explained that their commitment to SMEs was to add value to their business with enhanced credit facilities. His words: We would position ourselves as a bank for small and medium size businesses and hel...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Vodafone rules out bidding for MTN in wake of Bharti offer
Vodafone yesterday insisted that it had no plans to make a bid for MTN, a leading mobile phone operator in Africa and the Middle East. The UK group last week reviewed the case for making a bid for MTN after Bharti Airtel, India’s largest wireless operator, made an informal offer for a controlling stake in the Johannesburg-listed company. Bharti’s indicative offer was for 51 per cent of MTN’s equity at R160 per share. That valued MTN’s entire equity at...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Africa’s top entrepreneurs can find the path to global markets
Swaziland alone has 70 000 such micro enterprises. Why is this the case? Money? That’s usually what an SME owner will say. Indeed, SMEs needs capital to start up and expand. In developed economies, most start-ups are self-financed with help from the four Fs: founders, family, friends and foolhardy strangers. In Africa this strategy is possible only for a lucky few. For unproven entrepreneurs, or those lacking adequate collateral, capital can be very hard to come by...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Book review: ?The Bottom Billion? by Paul Collier
I’ve got a hip-high pile of books by my bedside, including several manuscripts written by good friends. But after Paul Collier’s talk at TED , his book moved to the top of the pile, and I spent a rainy Saturday diving into his new book, The Bottom Billion. It was time well spent. Collier has dedicated the ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Negocios en mercados pobres
Crear riqueza es mejor que repartir riqueza. Dan raz?n a este planteamiento un n?mero creciente de personas que, en distintas partes del mundo, se empe?an en aportar al desarrollo de los pa?ses menos favorecidos. La creencia tradicional es que los negocios se enfoquen en la parte de la poblaci?n con recursos. Seg?n el Banco Mundial, el sector privado descuida la oportunidad de negocios que representan los 4.000 millones de pobres que hay en el mundo, mercado que representa unos $5 ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Mosquito Nets: Caught in a Tangle
By Eliza Barclay Jenifa John recently spent $1 on a billowy swath of gauze that could help keep her family alive. The 22-year-old mother of two in the village of Engutoto, Tanzania, bought a mosquito-repelling bed net that will keep parasite-bearing insects away from her young children while they sleep. It’s a matter of utmost concern: Before she bought the net, one of John’s children was hospitalized with malaria?and fortunately survived. All across Africa...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The fatal cost of illness in Africa
When friends carried Jennifer Uduma, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head, to a government hospital in Lagos, staff turned her away because she could not afford to pay. She ended up at the private R-Jolad clinic in the gritty Gbagada neighbourhood, where doctors removed the bullet without asking for cash up front. Two years later, she returned to give birth to a baby girl. R-Jolad saved my life, says Ms Uduma, a 24-year-old student, nursing her day-old d...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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