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How a Mobile Airtime Vendor Became Zimbabwe’s Fastest-Growing Bank: EcoCash has reached a million subscribers in less than 6 months
Money is whizzing through the airwaves and cell towers of Zimbabwe, as a mobile cash transfer system is on track to become the country’s biggest bank. EcoCash, a mobile money transfer service operated by telecommunications company EcoNet Wireless Zimbabwe, has reached a million subscribers in under six months since its launch.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
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From Pavement Begging to Stable Housing, Stable Incomes : The Equitas Bird’s Nest program is moving pavement dwellers in Chennai toward secure housing
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to interview John about Equitas’s ultra poor pilot in Chennai. In this interview, he talks about the challenges his team faced while working with the pavement dwellers, the importance of sustainability and the road ahead for Equitas Bird’s Nest program.
- Categories
- Finance
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Impact Bonds: Boon or Boondoggle? Before We Hop on the Bandwagon, Let’s Scan the Road Ahead
Although there are many benefits to impact bonds – make no mistake – they are complicated to implement. Because they are new tools and because it is in the interests of all parties involved to reduce risk, only strong programs with proven statistical success are likely to be supported by a social or development impact bond.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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iHub: Experiencing the Energy at Nairobi’s Innovative ICT Hotspot
iHub currently connects to more than 8,500 members through a weekly newsletter and events that include Start-up Pitch Night, Fireside Chats, and Hack-a-Thons. A tiered membership scheme gives select members daily access to the facility, including the 20MB Internet connection and space for meetings, Internet use, networking, and collaborative projects.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
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Overcoming the Challenges in Mobile: Living Goods hopes to follow in the footsteps of Amway, Avon, and Tupperware
With a core business in health care sales, Living Goods is no stranger to behavior change. Despite the challenges to rolling out a new mobile system to a sales force of 250 women, most over 40 years old, 60 percent of who had never used SMS before, the organization is seeing some early successes.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Moving Beyond Access for Meaningful Financial Inclusion: Targeting investments to improve financial capability
Who are the relevant stakeholders to help bridge this financial capability gap? We are looking to explore these and related questions through 10 or more new research projects that we initiate at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) over the next two years, with support from the Citi Foundation.
- Categories
- Education
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A Market for Preservation: Tropical-forest friendly products, entrepreneurship and consumer choice
CleanStar Energy, is social enterprise that focuses on bringing sustainable bioenergy solutions into developing markets while preserving delicate tropical forest communities. It’s the type of business being sought by the Tropical Forest Challenge, which aims to identify the best for-profit solution – an idea, start up, or company with a positive impact on tropical forest biodiversity.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Transportation
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16 Stories:A New Book, ‘Llenando Espacios’ (Filling Spaces), Reveals Colombia’s Social Enterprise Prowess
As part of the forum “Social Entrepreneurship: A new look at the development of Colombia” last month at Bogota at the College of Higher Studies in Administration (CESA), Juan David Aristizabal presented his new book (written in Spanish) Filling Spaces: A Book about Social Entrepreneurs.
I had the chance to chat with him about his new book, which tells the storyies of 16 Colombian social entrepreneurs across multiple sectors.- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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