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Tools of the Trade: Building a Robust Deal Pipeline of Impact Companies in Emerging Economies – Part 3
What are the biggest lessons learned when it comes to finding high-quality companies in emerging markets? I posed this final question to our virtual panel of impact investing leaders who recommended teaming up with other investors to providing appropriate financing, making sure to select companies with a core social/environmental mission, embracing creativity, and embedding capacity building into the process.
- Categories
- Environment, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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An Entrepreneur’s View: WorldHaus, A Prototype for Progress in Global Housing
After months of planning and securing the prototype location in the outskirts of Chennai, India, we were ready to build in late summer of 2011. We begin our first housing development next month and aim to build over 500 houses by the end of the year.
- Categories
- Finance, Uncategorized
- Tags
- housing, rural development
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Guest Post: A Healthy Dose of Idealism – How David Brooks Got it Wrong
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently criticized social entrepreneurs for being too idealistic and out of touch with the realities of politics in developing countries. In response, Echoing Green’s Nidhi Chaudhary says Brooks fundamentally misses the point.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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In Telemedicine, Often Old Habits Prove Bigger Challenge Than Technology Hurdles
In the rural town of Juvvalapalem, most residents seek the local Rural Medical Practitioners (also known as quacks) when they need medical treatment. This is just one of the challenges we’re dealing with at GloCare, an initiative to provide market-driven quality healthcare solutions to underserved populations through telemedicine.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology, Telecommunications
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Will Lower Mobile Money Fees in Kenya, Tanzania be Enough to Stimulate Micropayments?
Many cite the high cost of electronic transfers as a key market barrier to leveraging mobile money platforms and enabling retail payments or other financial services to the poor. (See a previous post on that subject here). But recently, two leading mobile money providers in Kenya and Tanzania lowered their prices for small-value transfers.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
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At the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative University: ‘Talent is Universal: Opportunity is Not’
Last weekend over 1,000 students from around the world gathered on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. for the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative University. To get there, each of them had to make a commitment to action. From tracking cholera epidemics in Bangladesh, to reducing delinquency among disadvantaged young women in Arkansas through mentoring and coaching, to creating awareness about campus sustainability issues in Florida,
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Announcing Our New E-book: THE Big IDEA: Global Spread of Affordable Housing
Our affordable housing series from late 2011 was a special project, and we wanted to do something special to match it. So, along with our Content Partner Ashoka, we’re excited to announce the publication of our new e-book: The BIG IDEA: Global Spread of Affordable Housing.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- housing
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On the Impact Road Trip: How Wakami Value Chains are Weaving Change in Guatemala
Business incubator Communities of the Earth targets women in rural villages throughout Guatemala by teaching them how to make bracelets and necklaces. Women who receive the training work together in small groups (called “Wakami Value Chains”) to craft products for Kiej de los Bosques – a Guatemala City-based business that produces an assortment of handicraft products for both national and international consumption.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise