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Turning Global Targets into Action
For the first time, the global health community is being called to act against the rise of NCDs, the root cause of 38 million of the 56 million deaths in 2012. What may come as a shock, given that NCDs are generally thought of as diseases of affluence, is that Africa as a whole is poised to bear the bulk of the NCD burden in the coming years.
- Categories
- Health Care
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NexThought Monday: Why Digital Wallets Stay Empty – and Six Ways Providers Can Help
In emerging economies throughout the world, people have flocked to mobile payment solutions, whether it’s to send money home, facilitate informal business transactions or pay bills. Yet most digital accounts are empty and serve mainly as a pass-through for such payments, which limits the transformational potential of mobile money. Here are several factors which make digital accounts an illogical store of value for people with low and uncertain incomes, and six ways providers can address this issue.
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- Uncategorized
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Kiva’s New Fund Targets 1 Million Women Entrepreneurs – But How Much Impact Should We Expect?
Last week, the Inter-American Development Bank and the U.S. State Department joined microfinance pioneer Kiva to launch the Women’s Entrepreneurship Fund. The fund matches the contributions of lenders who respond to a woman entrepreneur’s loan request on Kiva’s online platform, and hopes to crowdfund loans for 1 million entrepreneurs. But in spite of the excitement around the announcement, questions about both Kiva’s approach and the broader microfinance model remain.
- Categories
- Investing
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Weekly Roundup: Uber, DriveU, Ola and the Greedy Sharing Economy in India
In a typically eventful week in social enterprise, the "social business" buzzword grew more obsolete, and we got a reminder of the many players eager to get their slice of the “sharing economy” - especially in India. Our editors discuss these developments in this roundup.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology, Transportation
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Lessons Learned Building Locally-Sourced Wheelchairs
JJD Innovations is empowering local tradesmen like welders to build wheelchairs that are customized to the end-user, while also creating a sustainable supply. The firm had to reiterate the engineering multiple times based on the availability of local materials, and reiterate again when the material was available but the building skills were hard to find.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- product design, scale
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How Your Company Can Become a Social Innovator
The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Social innovation defines social innovation as “the application of innovative, practical, sustainable, market-based approaches to benefit society in general, and low-income or under-served populations in particular." Traditionally associated with social entrepreneurs, this tool is increasingly being adopted by business. This is a trend to be welcomed, supported and replicated as companies – big or small, multinational or national – can contribute to taking the practice of social innovation to a significantly larger scale.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Five Reasons NGOs and Social Enterprises are Going Cashless
With over 250 services deployed in 89 countries worldwide, mobile money has enjoyed explosive growth among consumers in emerging markets. But digital payments are also transforming the work of development-focused organizations, many of which are shifting their bulk payment systems from cash to digital. This post explores the far-reaching organizational and financial benefits of this approach.
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- Uncategorized
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Consent as Conversation: Lean research in vulnerable settings
Whether research unfolds in Harvard Square or a remote village, in our home communities or in a context with which we are newly familiar, we hope to question our assumptions on agency, power, risk, and vulnerability. In this post, the authors focus on making informed consent a truly meaningful process, particularly when conducting research in vulnerable settings.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
