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Daniel Izzo on Brazil’s First Impact Investing Venture Capital Firm
Recently, the Opportunities for the Majority (OMJ) Initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank hosted Daniel Izzo, co-founder and partner of Vox Capital, Brazil’s first impact investing venture capital firm, which focuses on high potential businesses that serve the Brazilian low income population through products and services with the potential to improve their lives. In addition, Vox Capital is the first Brazilian fund OMJ is investing in.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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Scratch it Off the Public Health Wish-list: A menu of IT solutions for global health challenges
Observing the widespread use of ICT, coupled with intense interest from the global health community—witness, a few of my colleagues at the Center for Health Market Innovations set out to figure out why programs used technology. To answer this question, they analyzed more than 600 programs in over 100 countries—the contents of CHMI’s database at the time. Their findings, published in this month’s WHO Bulletin, highlight six key reasons health program managers adopt ICT.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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The Rockefeller Foundation at 100 Years: The Road Ahead
As part of its centennial celebrations The Rockefeller Foundation has launched various initiatives including the Innovation Challenges. Michael Myers, senior policy officer and director of Centennial Programming at The Rockefeller Foundation answered a few questions about the Innovations Challenge and the centennial.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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NexThought Monday: How Innovative Financing Mechanisms Are Helping Afghanistan’s Farmers
It’s not easy to improve farmers’ livelihoods in any developing country. Add in ongoing violence, feeble institutions, and some of the lowest living standards in the world, and the task can seem nearly impossible. But in August 2010, a project team from DAI landed in Afghanistan to do just that—by implementing USAID’s Agricultural Credit Enhancement (ACE) program, which aimed to lend $100 million to farmers and agribusinesses to invest in agriculture across the country.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education
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Weekly Roundup: A Look at the Recent Impact Investing Conversation (Cacophony)
Impact investing’s presence in the news and online discussions seemed to grow exponentially this week and last week. Here are just a few stories that breathed optimism into the impact investing field by speaking to the associated markets crossed our desks.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Achieving Sustainable Energy for All Hinges on International Cooperation and Leadership
This year was designated the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All by the UN General Assembly to raise awareness and promote the three objectives: clean energy access, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. 2012 is also the year of the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, to be held in late June. The moment is ripe for action, and lofty goals have been set, but where to begin?
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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Mini Case Study: Partnership Creates New Source of Income for Farmers in Brazil
In the south of the Brazilian state of Bahia, three organizations are uniting to implement an economic development project that is generating benefits for 60 farmers who live on settlements created after agrarian reform. The two-year pilot project is creating shared value by reorienting how a Brazilian company integrates farmers from poor communities into its value chain.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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A Profit-Driven Approach to Affordable Education: A Review of HippoCampus Learning Centers
In 2003, Indian private schools accounted for 23 percent of total enrollment, today they’re 30 percent. However, what still proves illusive is a mechanism to help poor families afford to send their children to private schools. In 2011, Grameen Koota and HippoCampus Learning Centers teamed up to address this through a plan that minimized fixed costs per student rural villages in India.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
