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Weekly Roundup: Preventing Zika, Improving Microfinance and Percolating Progress
It’s not too early to start thinking of creative differential pricing strategies that might help poor people afford a Zika vaccine; it's not too late for microfinance to regain some of the allure it's lost in recent years; and the time is just right for East Africa to up its coffee production game. Read all about these items, and more, in our Weekly Roundup.
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- Uncategorized
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How the Securing Water for Food Challenge Seeded My Social Enterprise
In 2013, Reel Gardening applied for and won funding from Securing Water for Food (SWFF) – which helps accelerate technology-based solutions that enable more food to be produced with less water in developing countries – and that money proved to be pivotal in the social enterprise's success. SWFF is funding more innovators this year; the deadline to apply is Monday.
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- Agriculture
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- lending, partnerships
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The G2P Silver Bullet? Not So Fast.
Many governments offer cash transfers to millions of people at or below the poverty line, most of whom are not connected to the formal financial system. If these cash transfers are funneled into bank accounts rather than paid directly out in cash, these people immediately gain an on-ramp to financial services. But there is a resounding dissonance between enthusiasm for this solution, and the evidence to date.
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Beyond Imagination: GE, Miller Center Helping Keep Moms, Children Healthy
A pilot called healthymagination Mother and Child – a unique partnership between Santa Clara University’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, based in Silicon Valley, and GE, which is investing $20 million in the joint venture – accelerates much-needed medical innovations in nine countries across sub-Saharan Africa.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Weekly Roundup: PSI for Profit, a Slowing ‘Pulse’ in Africa and Medical Tourism on Steroids
The non-profit Population Services International (PSI) announces the launch of a for-profit business in India, sub-Saharan Africa braces for "the lowest growth in more than 20 years," and Obamacare generates some unintended – and potentially exciting – consequences. We discuss these and other issues in our weekly roundup of social business and global development news.
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- Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise
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The Accidental Social Entrepreneur: A Hippie Ecologist’s Foray into a Costa Rican Business Start-up
Fifteen years ago, American Lisa Bradshaw became a social entrepreneur. But at the time, she didn't know it. When she launched the eco-conscious and locally sourced Green Screen in 2002, no other plant-based insect repellents were on the market in Costa Rica and certification requirements for organic products had just recently been legislated. Here are some of the hard lessons she picked up.
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- Agriculture, Environment, Social Enterprise
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Who Pays and What Works? The Changing Market of Inclusive Business Development Services
There are more development services for inclusive businesses than ever before. But how effective are they and what still needs to be done to improve the market? The Practitioner Hub for Inclusive Business and the Inclusive Business Accelerator have been exploring these questions and more in a new series.
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‘A Sweet Spot for Impact Investing’: Omidyar Network’s Roopa Kudva discusses India’s Growing Prominence
There was a surprising amount of tension on SOCAP's panel on impact investing in India, much of it revolving around a simple question: Are these investments making a difference? As one panelist put it, "Just because you're doing it, doesn't mean it's actually helping." Roopa Kudva, a partner at Omidyar Network, sat on the panel, and afterward she shared her views on this question, and on the impact sector's growing prominence in India, in a video Q&A.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise
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- impact investing
