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Weekly Roundup: Dubious Controversy, Outrageous Pricing and Angels in South Africa
Among the week's highlights (and lowlights): Grameen Foundation and Muhammad Yunus make an unwelcome entrance into U.S. presidential politics, Mylan Pharmaceuticals defends itself from price-gouging accusations, and a business angel network launches in South Africa.
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- Education, Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Curing Silicon Valley’s Myopia: Ross Baird, on How to Change the Narrative Around Investment and Innovation
Silicon Valley is home to some of the most brilliant innovators and deep-pocketed investors in the world. So why are they focusing so much of their time and resources on solving petty problems, while ignoring countless more pressing concerns? Village Capital's executive director Ross Baird discusses the problem and some potential solutions in this podcast.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Beyond ‘Africa Rising’ – The Emergence of the Not-Quite-Middle Class
The past five years or so have seen exuberant studies and predictions that Africa’s rapid growth was creating a new middle class that would transform governance and politics – the optimistic story of “Africa Rising.” But what we really see is not a rising middle class but rather a new group that lives on the cusp of poverty, getting by on $2 to $5 a day, and lacking the kinds of assets, job security, purchasing power and stability we associate with middle-class livelihoods.
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- Social Enterprise
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Impact Investing Comes of Age: ImpactAlpha Rounds up Nine Stories Shaping the Marketplace
Impact investments represent some of the greatest wealth generating opportunities of our time, from the trillions needed to build a clean global energy grid, to the opportunities in delivering essential services to the emerging middle class. Here are nine recent developments that highlight the sector's growing significance, part of ImpactAlpha's ongoing collaboration with NextBillion.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Borrowing and Saving – Not Two Sides of the Same Coin
From a mathematical point of view, borrowing and saving are mirror images. In both cases many small payments allow for one or more large payouts. Only the sequence differs. But after traveling to India and Kenya as part of a research project, we were struck by vast differences in the way people make borrowing and savings decisions - and these have profound implications for financial service providers.
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- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup: The Death of a Salesman, a Megaphone for Mom, and a Target on BlackRock
Divestment activists in the gay community turn their sights on BlackRock, a tragic suicide reveals trouble in India's health care industry, and a new study shows the value of constructive nagging in this week's Roundup.
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- Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise
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How to Help Low-Income People Save for Retirement: Make it Personal
Can personalized information about their pension payouts help lower-income individuals boost the size of their pensions? To find out, Innovations for Poverty Action placed eight publicly accessible computer modules in Chilean government offices, offering information on individuals' retirement savings from the national database. Here's what they found.
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- Investing
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Weekly Roundup: A $350 Million Boost for New Antibiotics, a ‘Brain Drain’ Dilemma and an Impact Investing ‘Ghetto’
With the global health threat posed by antibiotic resistance, it was kind of a big deal this week when a public-private partnership came up with $350 million to encourage pharmaceutical companies to make new antibiotics. We cover that story – along with the challenges of doctor migration, a landmark legal case against fossil fuel companies, and a provocative discussion on women's role in impact investing – in this roundup.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care, Investing