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From Luxury to Economy: Segmenting Health Care to Reach the Poor
Should health care be segmented in much the same way as cars and other products? Our gut reaction is likely to be, “No!” After all, it seems unfair that those with money have access to care while the poor don’t. But health care already is segmented across a variety of social determinants, including wealth. What if health care was not segmented based on the quality of care provided? Instead, what if health care were segmented based on how the care was delivered?
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- public health
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Putting Vision into Focus: Lessons on Scaling Up a Social Enterprise
Out of everyone experiencing vision losses globally, 2.5 billion of them can have their vision restored with just a pair of eyeglasses. BRAC and VisionSpring are tackling this problem in Bangladesh through an innovative social entrepreneurship model: They sell low-cost reading glasses to low-wage earners through BRAC’s network of community health workers.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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How to Improve Public-Private Health Care Collaboration in India
India has made rapid advances in improving health care, but to address lingering issues such as accessibility and quality, the country needs to move toward a better-integrated care system, with public and private providers collaborating. Based on its experiences, ACCESS Health International proposes three key shifts that might help reach that goal.
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- Health Care
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How Can Inclusive Business Advance the SDGs?
Two recent publications released in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals' first anniversary share the view that inclusive business is a part of the solution to deliver on the SDGs. That's a sign of progress, according to Jenny Melo, but we still need to go deeper in the conversation and ask for impacts, measurements and specific connections.
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- Education, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Microfinance for Water and Sanitation: Opportunities and Challenges for MFIs
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) presents an opportunity for MFIs to meaningfully impact their customers’ lives and aid in their struggle against poverty. However, a variety of issues play a role in determining the suitability of a WASH finance product. To help MFIs navigate through these, MicroSave and Water.Org have developed a series of toolkits.
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- Health Care
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Social Business Roundup: The Problem with Sachets, the Beauty of Rats and the Dark Side of Cross-Selling
Everyone seems to love the products in individually-sized sachets being sold at the BoP ... except for Mother Nature. Ethiopia's only too happy to roll out the welcome mat for some rats with amazing TB-sniffing skills. A questionable cross-selling strategy in South Africa harms a vulnerable population and raises uncomfortable questions about financial inclusion. It's all part of our weekly Social Business Roundup.
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- Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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A Simple, Painless Way Governments Can Help the Poor and the Environment
In Haiti there’s a 15 percent tariff and tax on clean cookstoves. Based on elasticity of demand, Dalberg projects that if improved cookstoves’ taxes and tariffs were eliminated, their annual sales would increase by 13 percent, from 185,000 to 209,000. This in turn would mitigate costs associated with health and environment consequences of traditional cooking techniques.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
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Social Business Roundup: Laureate Education Goes Big, Omidyar Gives Directly, Surdna Foundation Embraces Impact Investing
In social business news this week, the world's biggest for-profit college company raised $490 million in its public debut, Omidyar Network gave a $493,000 grant to support GiveDirectly's mission of sending unconditional cash transfers to the poor, and the Surdna Foundation announced plans to dedicate 10 percent of its endowment ($100 million) to a new impact investing fund. Read about these developments and more in our news roundup.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise
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