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Google’s Big BOP Bet? Bringing Wi-Fi to Africa
Google announced this week that it has selected Abuja, Nigeria as one of about seven African cities the company will fully connect with a wireless network. Although described as one of Google’s “social responsibility projects", the announcement follows the company’s proposal last...
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Jhai’s take on ICT and development – a Social View
The following was written by Lee Thorn of the Jhai Foundation, originally sent to us via the Foundation’s newsletter.I think it might be useful to look at rural ICT and development from a social perspective. What works from this perspective? What doesn’t?What Jhai does is consulting...
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Davos Blurb
Unlike Pablo, I haven’t gotten explicit permission from Katherine Marshall of the World Bank to post an excerpt from her Davos notes, but I point you to PSDblog for her interesting summary of the last days’ discussions. Highlights: questions on why Africa isn’t higher on the agenda;...
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Open call for testimonials on African business climate
In response to the World Bank’s Doing Business Index of 2006, which ranks many African countries quite low (with a few exceptions among countries that are working on pro-business reforms), the BBC is requesting testimonials from people now doing or who have done business in an African...
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Will Open Source MFI Software Set the Industry Standard?
David at Microcapital reminds us of the Remote Transaction System, developed by Hewlett-Packard in conjunction with partner MFIs to widen the reach of financial services into rural areas. WRI was closely associated with the RTS project, at one time holding the intellectual capital in trust...
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Putting Paid to Poverty
"Putting Paid to Poverty” provides a hopeful scenario for the development of the ’base of the pyramid’ over the next ten years. It was written by Allen Hammond, VP for Innovation and Special Projects and William Kramer, Deputy Director of the Development Through Enterprise...
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Hospital Mafias and more! This year in global health corruption
The 2006 Transparency International report is out, and this year’s focus is on health services--apparently a sector particularly prone to corruption.? Why? The executive summary highlights three reasons: imbalance of information (health professionals know more than patients, and pharmaceutical...
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Water, water, every…where?
Thanks , Rob, for submitting a news story on water research that highlights what is (hopefully) a trend: the delivery of clean water to the BOP and the increased efficiency of water usage during production of other goods. For those of you who do not check the activity database faithfully,...
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