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National Microfinance Bank to digitize agricultural sector in Tanzania
National Microfinance Bank Pic (NMB) has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Mastercard to ensure the digitization of the agricultural sector in Tanzania with the roll-out of eKilimo, a mobile solution developed by the Mastercard Lab for Financial Inclusion.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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This Superfood Fuels Social Good
Lisa Curtis learned about moringa, the tall leafy plant that she's trying to push as America’s next super food craze, while working as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small, rural village in Niger, West Africa. Food was scarce and Curtis, a vegetarian, felt constantly tired. So when some people in the village suggested she eat the tree’s leaves, she decided to try it.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How to Stop Wasting Food … and Feed the World
Productivity isn't the only variable in the effort to increase the world's food supply; one-third of all food gets lost or wasted. Science for Society Techno Services claims its solar conduction dryer increases the shelf life of perishable produce by six to 12 months, and the firm even buys processed food from farmers and takes their dehydrated produce to market.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
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Creative Climbing: How Impact Enterprises are Overcoming Obstacles in East Africa
In 2016, Intellecap undertook a study to better understand how East African impact entrepreneurs manage to design viable business models despite the various market challenges. The insights from the study can inform inclusive development in the region and across the global south. The study classified impact enterprises across three levers based on their interaction with the BoP: access, ability and knowledge.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Find Good Partners and Don’t Quit: Lessons from a Water-Ag Innovator
Bart A.J. de Jonge and Si Technologies came up with a way to protect farmers around the world and their crops against increasingly common droughts that devastate local communities. He wanted to get the product in the hands of hands of millions of subsistence farmers quickly, but it took years, for a variety of reasons. Here, he offers advice to other social entrepreneurs, including this: "Change is a long haul, but don’t give up."
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Exeo Capital Agri-Vie Fund II Attracts Over $100 Million
EXEO Capital, the pan-African private equity investment firm, has announced the first close of the second Agri-Vie Fund, focused on the food and agribusiness sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, after attracting commitments of over $100 million, one third more than the initial target.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- impact investing
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Gates, Mastercard Launch New Platform for Smallholder Farmers
Digital technology has long been touted as the key to helping smallholder farmers around the world overcome barriers that have kept them trapped in poverty, though initial innovations did not always deliver on this promise. Now developers of digital tools for agriculture are trying to refine their offerings, focusing on products that farmers want to use and that align with their priorities. And at the top of that list is getting fair prices for their products.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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MasterCard Thinks Small With Microcommerce Platform in Africa
For some financial-services giants, the next big thing is micro, and unbanked customers are the entry point. The latest example is MasterCard, which is getting into microcommerce in Kenya with the launch of a new mobile platform that lets consumers buy goods with cash, mobile money, or bank transfer using their phones. The service, called 2Kuze, is aimed at Kenyan farmers and their customers and may mark the beginning of a deeper journey into mobile money products.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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