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Last Mile in Style
Zipline, a Silicon Valley drone manufacturing firm, has contracted with the government of Rwanda to make last-mile blood deliveries. Starting this month, the drones will make between 50-150 deliveries per day to 21 transfusing facilities located in the western half of the country.
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- Health Care
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Partnering to Provide Safe Surgery
There are vast, unmet gaps in access to safe surgical care around the world, with devastating health and economic repercussions. That's why Smile Train and Lifebox are working to equip local health care facilities with the resources, training and technology necessary to make surgery safer.
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- Health Care
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Post-conflict Colombia: A Crucial Time to Re-evaluate the Role of Inclusive Business
After over 50 years of internal armed conflict between the national government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country is starting to lay the foundations for a stable and lasting peace. The business sector has been called on to contribute to the post-conflict process, and inclusive businesses offer a clear way to do so. However, though Colombia's traditional approach to inclusive business has produced significant results for enterprises and communities, the impending post-conflict era demands a re-evaluation of how the sector operates.
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- Social Enterprise
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Beyond RCTs: How Rapid-Fire Testing Can Build Better Financial Products
Rapid-fire tests are nimble randomized controlled trials specifically aimed at improving product design. They are already common practice among technology-based companies as a way to iterate and rapidly improve their product and expand their user-base, but they can also be used to answer questions about the demand for financial products and improve other interventions that help the world’s poor. Innovations for Poverty Action explores what these trials can and cannot do.
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NextBillion's weekly e-newsletter is designed to be a crib sheet for anyone interested in exploring the connection between development and enterprise. It offers a snapshot of our offerings, including links to the most thought-provoking posts, compelling quotes, photos and other highlights from the week on NextBillion.
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- Social Enterprise
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Storming the Walls – How Mozambique’s ‘Citadel Economy’ Shapes Financial Inclusion
In Mozambique, the combination of infrastructure deficit caused by colonial neglect and civil war, a centralist political economy, the sheer scale of poverty, and limited formal sector employment opportunities creates sharp income inequalities and shapes a "citadel economy," where high walls separate those inside and outside the enclave. This keeps financial service providers from reaching excluded target markets in the informal and agrarian economy. Christine Hougaard at Cenfri explores the problem and its potential solutions.
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- Uncategorized
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Opportunity International and MyBucks: ‘A Powerful Partnership to Improve More Lives’
Opportunity International's sale of six microfinance banks to the fintech company MyBucks has sparked extensive analysis in recent days - along with some serious concerns. In this article, Opportunity CEO Vicki Escarra responds to the criticisms of the partnership leveled by former MFTransparency CEO Chuck Waterfield in his recent NextBillion post.
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- Uncategorized
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‘Ahead of the Curve’ – Three Companies Get Serious About Measuring Customers’ Financial Health
It is easy to track the number of active checking accounts or the number of dollars lent on credit cards. It is much harder to measure if those checking accounts and credit cards are actually helping customers manage their money better. To help financial services providers get serious about measuring their impact, CFSI recently released eight key indicators of financial health, and profiled three companies that are ahead of the curve in understanding customer outcomes.
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