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Wanted: Smart, Creative Capital
Last month’s “Cracking the Nut” conference, hosted by the development consulting firm AZMJ, focused on “Attracting Private Sector Investment to Rural and Agricultural Markets.” Throughout the sessions, it became clear that investment alone on the part of the private sector isn’t sufficient to transform these markets; private sector capital must be applied intelligently and creatively if it is to wield that power.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Featured Event: Partnering to Crack the Nut
At the Cracking the Nut Conference earlier this week, effective partnerships were highlighted as essential for success in growing rural agricultural markets. Despite a line up of sessions dedicated entirely to the subject, partnerships were discussed in almost every session.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Tags
- supply chains
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From Hotel Uniforms To Life-Saving Water Filters: Evolving The Humanitarian Entrepreneurship Model
In recent years, investments in global public health have created opportunities for private innovators, technology developers, and business investors to join the fight against infectious diseases affecting people in developing countries. Such private entities are focusing their innovative platforms on developing technological breakthroughs for the most vulnerable people, often in the most extreme situations. As a result, a new business model, "humanitarian entrepreneurship," is being shaped by innovators at all levels. Here, doing good is good for business.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Countdown to World Peace Day
June 21 also marks the three-month countdown to Peace Day on Sept. 21, 2012, when we hope to see the largest global reduction of violence ever recorded on one day – the Global Truce 2012 campaign. We believe this will be the largest-ever gathering of individuals in the name of peace.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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CEOs urge Rio+20 leaders to make water security top priority
AFP - Some 45 corporate chiefs attending the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development on Monday pledged to make water security a strategic priority and called for decisive action by governments.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
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From the Front Lines: Thousands of Acres and Jobs – Building a Sustainable Banana Company in Mozambique
I have been focusing most of my time with TechnoServe on a new capital-raising initiative for a growth-oriented greenfield banana plantation. We are in the process of raising in excess of $30 million to plant over 3,000 hectares in the years ahead. The company, which could employ up to 4,000 workers, may grow to become one of the largest producers of bananas in the country.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Can This New Backpack Solve The World’s Water Woes?
You may not have heard of Greif, but you’re probably familiar with its products. One of the largest industrial packaging companies in the world, Greif makes plastic drums, fiber drums, water bottles for water coolers, steel containers, and more. The companies that buy certain Greif products--like the drums that hold hazardous chemicals--are the same ones that may inadvertently poison people in the developing world who use those containers to transport water after they’ve been thrown out. And so it makes a certain kind of sense that Greif would step up to create a solution, dubbed WaterWear, that allows people to safely and easily carry gallons of clean water.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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New Farmer Alliance to Improve Incomes and Food Security in Africa
WASHINGTON, DC, June 12, 2012 – Today, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Vodafone, and TechnoServe launched a new partnership to increase the productivity, incomes and resilience of smallholder farmers in Kenya, Mozambique, and Tanzania. The Connected Farmer Alliance will leverage mobile phone-enabled solutions to improve supply chain efficiency and increase farmers’ ability to access secure, timely payments and other financial services.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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