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Want to Change the World? Support Poor Farmers
Achieving food security and improved nutrition worldwide is one of the biggest of the Sustainable Development Goals. But to achieve these goals, according to BRAC International, two things are crucial: women must have decision-making roles in both the public and private sector, and organizations working on providing anti-poverty solutions must have business-like models.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education
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‘The Face of the African Entrepreneur’
The third annual Sankalp Africa Summit takes place Feb. 24-26 in Nairobi and is centered on the theme “Spurring the Entrepreneurship Economy.” In previewing the summit, Sheena Raikundalia of Intellecap interviewed Vava Angwenyi, founder of Vava Coffee. The Kenyan enterprise is creating sustainable livelihoods for over 30,000 smallholder coffee farmers as well as employing HIV-positive women and ex-offenders in the informal settlements surrounding the capital.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
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Connecting With the Customer – When the Lines of Connection Do Not Exist
We created WeFarm, a social enterprise whose target market is small-scale farmers located in remote areas without Internet access. WeFarm provides a platform for farmers to share information on agriculture with one another, which makes our business model globally scalable. Wikipedia and Google are great examples of organizations and businesses that have executed community platforms very successfully, but the model isn’t widely used in the developing world.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
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Financing the Farming of the Future
According to the World Bank, 78 percent of the world’s poor are rural poor, and many of them are farmers. If you are looking for social returns, there are few better places to invest than in agriculture. Yet, we see significant unmet capital needs. At Calvert Foundation is interested in bringing additional capital to grow this important sector and encouraging other private investors to join as well. Fair trade lending has been an important movement in the agriculture sector, and has led to the creation of critical jobs and economic activity. But how can we learn from pioneer investors and encourage capital to address the significant gaps in financing for innovations in the value chains for locally consumed crops?
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
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The Most Popular Posts of 2015: Which One Most Influenced You?
For the fourth year in a row, we're launching our Most Influential Post of the Year Contest – think of it as a listicle that you control. Below are the 12 most viewed articles on NB by month. Please read or re-read them and then vote for your favorite(s).
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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NexThought Monday: Proof Points for a New Model of Aid
Partners in Food Solutions was founded five years ago on the conviction that Africa can and someday soon will feed itself, and that there are business solutions to humanitarian problems. Today, the CEO says, that conviction has been proved out by the organization's impact and by its growing ranks of corporate partners.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Does Your Organization Actually Empower Women?
Although many organizations working in international development make grandiose claims of their programs’ ability to empower women, with few tools available to actually measure empowerment, it is hard to tell if these claims are based on fact. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index is one way to ensure that they are.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Impact Assessment
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Ethical Business Actions and Poverty Reduction
Poverty alleviation is the main concern of many countries. Poverty is said to be an economic, social, cultural, political and moral phenomenon. Like the issue, its solutions are multi-faceted. It requires a collective action from governments, corporations, citizens, consumers, workers, investors and educators.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Asia Pacific