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From Trash Barriers to ‘Sky Latrines’: Leveraging Entrepreneurship to Address WASH-Related Challenges in Cambodia’s Floating Villages
Cambodia faces a number of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)-related challenges — particularly in the floating villages and dense lakeside communities around the Mekong River. As Simon Crittle at iDE explains, these waterways are heavily contaminated, causing residents to suffer from waterborne diseases. He explores how iDE is addressing these issues by helping local community members create and monetize waste-management solutions — providing livelihoods for women entrepreneurs in the process.
- Categories
- Environment, Social Enterprise, Technology, WASH
- Tags
- hygiene, recycling, sanitation, waste, water, women entrepreneurs
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Analyzing Menstrual Health and Hygiene Through a Market-Based Lens: A New Report Assesses the Landscape in the Global South
Around the world, roughly 1.8 billion people menstruate — and over 300 million are menstruating on any given day. Yet as Lucie Klarsfeld, Jeanne Charbit and Louise Berthault at Hystra explain, menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) is an overlooked topic in global development, and there's a lack of research about the market for menstrual products in the Global South. They share findings from a new Hystra report that addresses this knowledge gap by assessing the market for MHH solutions in eight emerging economies.
- Categories
- WASH
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Taking Inspiration from Innovation: Key Insights from Eight Entrepreneurs Making an Impact in Emerging Markets
Whether they're working to increase smallholder farmers’ profits, promote water or sanitation solutions, or address other key needs in emerging markets, social entrepreneurs tend to face common challenges. That's why they must learn from each other if they hope to flourish. Brigit Helms at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship shares insights from eight entrepreneurs in Miller Center’s Clean Water and Climate-Smart Agriculture program, who discuss their innovations, the challenges they’ve overcome and the lessons they’ve learned.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise, WASH
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The Link Between WASH and ROI: New Research Shows How Investing in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Benefits Both Employees and the Bottom Line
There are clear links between water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and workplace productivity: WASH facilities improve worker health and wellbeing, boosting productivity and business performance. But as Kelly Parsons at WaterAid America explains, there has been a lack of research on how much WASH interventions really impact the bottom line of businesses in emerging markets. She shares results from a new WaterAid report that assessed the ROI of WASH investments at several businesses in India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Tanzania, and discusses how to maximize the impact of these interventions.
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Zero Waste vs. Climate Change: Why Waste Reduction Offers a Key Opportunity for Climate Action Through Private Enterprise
With the climate crisis growing increasingly urgent, pressure is mounting to find easily implementable, affordable solutions that yield fast results. As global leaders gather at the COP27 climate conference, waste reduction and management are increasingly seen as one such solution. According to Claire Arkin at GAIA, one reason for the enthusiasm around the waste sector’s climate potential is that it offers massive scope for business innovation. She discusses the connection between waste and climate change, and highlights some of the business models that are converting this global challenge into an opportunity for impact.
- Categories
- Environment, WASH
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Pushing the Water Boundaries: How Social Impact Incentives Can Make WASH Enterprises More Innovative, Impactful and Catalytic
The water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector is ripe for change, as it is far from being on track to achieve universal access to safe drinking water (SDG 6). According to Shabana Abbas at Aqua for All, and Bjoern Struewer and Patrizia Baffioni at Roots of Impact, impact entrepreneurs can drive the sector forward, but their funders will need to move away from the usual grant models to explore more innovative and sustainable financing approaches. They discuss one such model – Social Impact Incentives – and how it's being applied successfully to support WASH enterprises.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise, WASH
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NextBillion’s 2022 Reader and Guest Writer Survey: Share Your Views and Help Shape Our Coverage
As an open forum for the development through enterprise sector, almost all of NextBillion's content is guest written. That's why it's important for us to check in periodically with our writers and readers, to get a better sense of how well our coverage is suiting your needs – and what we could do better. To that end, we've put together a brief, six-question survey, and we invite both writers and readers to share your views. Your input will be highly valuable as we work to highlight the businesses, innovations, debates and leaders that are shaping the sector.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Coronavirus, Education, Energy, Environment, Finance, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology, WASH
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From Problem to Profit: Rewiring the E-Waste Value Chain in Africa
Africa is home to bountiful reserves of metals and minerals, but these resources have not unleashed widespread economic growth. However, as Anne Cathrine Garde and Blessing Layee-Maima Caine at the BESTSELLER Foundation explain, an “urban mine” is quietly growing on the continent, in the form of discarded electronic devices loaded with precious metals. They discuss how trailblazing trash entrepreneurs are tapping the riches sitting in Africa's overflowing landfills, and turning this problem into profit by rewiring the broken e-waste value chain.
- Categories
- Technology, WASH
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