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Social Business Roundup: A New Leader at Rockefeller, a New Investment in Global Health, and a New Mobile Money Frontrunner in India
When Raj Shah left USAID as its administrator in 2015, he went on to form – not a charity, not an NGO – but a private equity fund, Latitude Capital, which invests power and infrastructure projects in emerging markets. Now that he's been named president of the Rockefeller Foundation, what course will Shah chart? We cover that question, and several other intriguing developments, in our social business roundup.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
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Global Health Interventions Need to Hit the Ground Running. Here’s Some Pre-Race Help.
A recent white paper describes a “six-month window” in which global health interventions need to take shape, or else most of them are doomed. To help get things right from the start, and ultimately achieve scale, USAID’s Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact recently published “Ready, Set, Launch: A Country-Level Launch Planning Guide for Global Health Innovations.”
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- innovation, research, scale
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Announcing NextBillion’s Most Influential Posts of 2016
Congratulations to the three winners of NextBillion’s “Most Influential Post of 2016” contest. Each winner brought a unique mixture of topicality, engaging writing and thought-provoking analysis to their posts, which tackled some of the most important issues facing the social business world in the past year.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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A Week at the Cutting Edge: Eight Insights into Emerging Market Fintech
This post by Jake Kendall and Stephen Deng, about innovators prototyping and testing new fintech ideas at the first DFS Lab Fintech Bootcamp in Dar es Salaam, was December's most popular. It's now in the running for Most Influential Post of 2016. Today's the last day to vote for it – or any of the other 11 entrants. The winner will be announced Wednesday.
- Categories
- Technology
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Microfinance Looks Toward the Future – But Will Fintech Revive the Controversies of Its Past?
James Militzer's wrap-up of European Microfinance Week says microfinance has lurched from development sector darling to punching bag over the years, but in the midst of this turmoil – and in reaction to it – practitioners at industry events have been diligently reimagining their sector. That take earned Militzer a spot in our Most Influential contest. You can participate by casting a vote ... but you've only got one more day.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Can the Mobile Phone Call Youth Back to the Farm?
This post by Christopher Burns and Milani Chatterji-Len, about how mobile phones can offer youth a pathway back to the farm, was October's most popular article. It's the latest entrant in our Most Influential Post of 2016 contest. Please read or re-read the posts and then vote for your favorite(s). Voting ends Jan. 2, and we'll name the winner on Jan. 4.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
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Finding the Right Last-Mile Distribution Model
Experiments in bringing market-driven solutions to base-of-the-pyramid customers are often done in isolation, with little sharing of what works and what doesn’t. To address this knowledge gap, MIT D-Lab created the Practical Impact Alliance, which brings together leaders from diverse organizations working in inclusive business. The group has just released a 43-page guide called Best Practices for BoP Door-to-Door Distribution.
- Categories
- Education
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10 Developments Shaping Smallholder Finance in Africa
This post tackles a tough question: How do we reduce the risk of agricultural activities so that financial institutions will provide loans to small farmers in developing countries? It proved to be the most popular article on NB in August, and thus earned a spot in our annual Most Influential Post contest. We're publishing a new entrant in the contest every day through Jan. 2 and we'll announce the winner Jan. 4.
- Categories
- Agriculture
