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Why Health Care Remains Poor in NGO-rich Haiti, and How Social Enterprises Can Fix It
Haiti is well known for its high concentration of aid-driven actors; no other country in the world has more NGOs per capita. And that's not a good thing. It's led to a chaotic marketplace which adversely impacts vulnerable people, according to Allison Howard-Berry of Care 2 Communities. She believes, however, that a social enterprise approach to health services in Haiti can work, in time, and describes how.
- Categories
- Health Care
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A Goal Within Sight: How Blindness Prevention Can Empower Women and Boost Emerging Markets
Ninety percent of the world’s visually impaired population live in low-income settings, and many lose their sight simply because they don’t have access to eye care. Women, who make up two-thirds of the world’s blind people, are especially at risk. Orbis, which partners with local hospitals in emerging economies to create customized eye care training programs, suggests it's time to rethink health care, and to do it through the lens of gender equity.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Redefining Global Health: Nations Ascending vs. People Cured
Dr. Vanessa Kerry is the co-founder and CEO of Seed Global Health, which helped establish a novel public-private partnership designed to address the shortage of health professionals in emerging economies. Kerry, who will deliver a keynote address at the upcoming Global Health & Innovation Conference at Yale University, talks about sustainability in global health, overcoming current political challenges and true corporate citizenship.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Home Sweet Home: Mobilizing Microfinance for Housing
Only 2 percent of microfinance portfolios consist of housing loans. Why? The authors say it's because housing languishes in the “household spending” category; it's not income generating, so it's somehow less deserving. It will soon be in the spotlight, however, as the eighth European Microfinance Award focuses on what financial institutions serving the world’s poor can do to address their housing needs.
- Categories
- Investing
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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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Dear Critics: Here’s Why the Off-grid Energy Industry Needs Impact Investment
Off-grid lighting trade organization GOGLA responds to a recent post from Ceniarth critical of "hype" in the energy access sector. Consider the off-grid market within the context of the wider world and economy around it, say John Keane and Laura Sundblad, and remember that millions of households around the globe live with unreliable, dangerous, inadequate and ultimately extremely expensive means of lighting and basic energy.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing
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Hype in the Energy Access Sector (Finally!)
Leaders at Persistent Energy, an impact investor focused on the renewable sector primarily in West Africa, push back against a recent NextBillion post by Ceniarth positing the industry has become overhyped. While there has been some hype about a handful of established companies, they argue, the bigger concern is that not enough capital is flowing into the sector to give it the opportunity to prove itself.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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