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Bank vs. Telco: The simmering mobile money standoff
Professional conferences are usually heavy on information and light on emotion. But participants at Friday’s Mobile Money conference were treated to as impassioned a debate as you’re likely to see in a roomful of financial services practitioners and academics. The combatants: a banker and a telco representative competing in the mobile financial services space in Africa.
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- Uncategorized
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Game-changing Partnerships: Health care companies in rural India finding ways to complement each other
About 840 million people in India - or 72 percent of the total population of 1.2 billion - are rural. For these 840 million people, health care is basically inaccessible. A few innovative companies are out to change that.
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- Health Care
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How a Colombian Utility Buttresses the BoP: How EPM’s social financing works
Through 2012, EPM’s social funding program benefited more than 120,000 families by providing loans worth US$69 million. By the end of 2013, the Colombian utility expects to serve nearly 33,000 new families and deliver an additional $US28 million in loans.
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- Uncategorized
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The Road from Innovation to Scale: Experiments to Improve Product Design
As part of NextBillion Financial Innovation’s launch, we invited a number of leaders to contribute their views on where innovation is heading, and what obstacles remain. Today Dean Karlan, president and founder of IPA, describes how to design innovative financial products that are both scalable and effective in addressing the real needs of the world’s poor.
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- Uncategorized
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‘Market Relationships’ that Stand the Test of Time: A Q&A with TechnoServe’s Simon Winter on progress and peril in Ag development
TechnoServe is a nonprofit that is squarely focused on profits ... for low-income farmers and small businesses, that is. Simon Winter, senior vice president of development, says once market relationships are built and skill-building strengthened, sourcing costs from smallholders can absorbed in the cost of the goods being sold.
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- Agriculture, Education
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A ‘Win-Win-Win’ Possible In TB Battle: But engagement with private providers is critical for achievement of goals
A key challenge in TB control is replacing suboptimal tests with WHO-endorsed, validated tools at affordable prices, and ensuring that all TB cases are appropriately managed. In this Q&A, Dr. Madhukar Pai of the McGill International TB Centre in Montreal discusses a few of the overarching market issues that impact efforts to diagnose and treat TB worldwide.
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- Health Care
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Sustainable Farming Needs Sustainable Finance: How Rainforest Alliance helps the environment by helping farmers get loans
Lenders consider agriculture to be particularly risky. Farms are often located in remote areas, crops are vulnerable to pests and unpredictable weather, and prices are susceptible to rapid changes. To help address these challenges, the Rainforest Alliance launched its Sustainable Finance Initiative, which helps farmers and SMEs access different types of loans.
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- Agriculture
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Applying ICT to Education in Africa: While Internet access expands, energy access is waning
Africa has largely leapfrogged through several technological innovations – such as the landline phone – in the last 20 years. The rapid pace of development has also led to the spread of ICTs without the infrastructure to support widespread adoption. Many developing countries lack consistent access to energy.
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- Technology, Telecommunications
