A Michigan startup company founded by University of Michigan students has made legal history by becoming the first “do-it-yourself” benefit corporation in the state. Deborah Burand, a law professor at the University of Michigan and co-founder of the International Transactions Clinic (ITC), reports.

You may have heard of multinational corporations, such as Unilever, seeking to target the so-called ‘bottom of the pyramid’, providing goods and services to the $5 trillion marketcomprising the poorest 4 billion people in the world. But there are also small business owners from that segment of society targeting that market.

Defying illiteracy, 420 women floriculturists from Kotha Reddypalem and Patha Reddypalem villages in Machilipatnam have proved that they can be successful entrepreneurs

Aparajita Agrawal's Sankalp Forum is the first platform globally that has social enterprises at its core.

Leaders in sub-Saharan Africa, a region with the world’s fastest-growing and youngest population, seek to create more agriculture jobs.

In a promising step toward the economic empowerment of women in emerging markets, the Coca-Cola Co. and International Finance Corp. (IFC) on Monday announced a joint initiative that aims to support female entrepreneurship in Eurasia and Africa.

Anonciata, a 30-something mother of four, survived a brutal raid on her town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but not without injury.

As President and Founder of Harambe-Cameroon, Olivia Mukam established Cameroon’s first Social Entrepreneurship Program: an opportunity zone for Cameroonian university students to translate their ideas into actions, as they propose business enterprises to solve local problems. The initiative Harambe-Cameroon is led by an alliance of young Cameroonians in the Diaspora, from the US, UK, France and Asia. Founded in 2009, Harambe Cameroon is an independent branch of the global alliance Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance, recognized and supported by the White House, the UK's Westminster, the Ghanaian Parliament, plus African and global leaders such as Mo Ibrahim and Aliko Dan Gote.

In recent years, investing in women has become more than inspiring rhetoric or good PR for a company. It’s now becoming a core business strategy yielding quantifiable returns. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in 2011, to “achieve the economic expansion we all seek, we need to unlock a vital source of growth that can power our economies in the decades to come.” By “increasing women’s participation in the economy and enhancing their efficiency and productivity,” the secretary said, “we can have a dramatic impact on the competitiveness and growth of our economies.”

When it comes to making the case for empowering women entrepreneurs, it’s “mission accomplished,” according to Isobel Coleman, director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Women and Foreign Policy Program, who has researched the issue for many years. Speaking at a December 2012 panel on supply chains, she said most development experts now agree that including women entrepreneurs in global supply chains is “one of the great levers of change” and that “putting more money in the hands of women entrepreneurs” leads to positive outcomes for families, communities and nations. The only question now, she said, is how to accomplish the task.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has called on all health partners to identify ways in which, working together, Africa can continue to ensure that the progress made is maintained and enhanced regarding women's health and in combating malaria in the African region.

John Kluge says things many people want to say, but don’t because they think it’s taboo. Kluge is out to change that.

On a gray Wednesday morning in the Malawian capital of Lilonge, a group of young people perform a skit for philanthropist Melinda Gates who has come to visit their recreational centre, a drafty room with wooden, board walls and a corrugated iron roof that don't quite meet.

Harvard Business School and Kennedy School of Government graduate Elizabeth Scharpf, 35, appears confident with a warm smile. These attributes no doubt come in handy when Scharpf travels the world to raise awareness about a subject that most people don't often discuss: menstruation.

In the developing world, one in 10 girls is married before the age of 18. One in seven is married before 15. Tino Borantu of Ethiopia was married at age 9.

Women in the Tibet autonomous region enjoy rising social status and are stepping beyond their traditional roles, according to an official at the Tibet Women's Federation.

Women perform more than half of all economic activities in developing countries but only a third of their work is captured by statisticians, a new report says. This means women are likely to miss out on business, industrial and social development opportunities arising from globalisation.

Changemakers talked to Shaista Bukhari about how to unleash the entrepreneurial power of women and what it could mean to Pakistan’s economy, if more women were to open businesses on their own. A transformation that requires more than just seed money.

Last year, when 24-year-old Madhuri Satyanarayan, a resident of Neredmet village in Andhra Pradesh, found out that she was pregnant, her joy was tempered with anxiety about the medical costs. At the nearby private hospital where she went for her check–ups, the cost of delivery was estimated to be around US$500.

(ANSAmed) - Rome, October 26 - Just 22% of those who work in the Middle East and North Africa are women. The average is 27% in Egypt, Jordan, Lybia, Morocco and Tunisia.

KAMPALA, UGANDA — Far too often, in the view of Africa’s budding female entrepreneurs, their continent is characterized as the recipient of aid that enables residents just to struggle by, and as a place that mistreats and marginalizes its women.