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Helping Rural Farmers Avoid Financial ’Shocks,’ Build Profits
In many developing countries, the everyday well-being of the poor is profoundly tied to ups and downs of the harvest. In rural Ghana, where Yale University Economist Chris Udry runs his CFSP research project, this is especially true. Udry explains how his research might help rural farmers in developing countries manage the everyday risks they face.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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NextThought Monday Guest Post: The Road to Self-Sufficiency
I found myself on such a road in the lowlands of Swaziland earlier this year. In the company of Swazi colleagues, I cruised along a curvy stretch hugged by rolling hills and a vast blue sky. We turned onto a nearly invisible dirt path to a dusty, barnlike building, where we prepared to present a workshop to cotton farmers, who were eager to learn.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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NexThought Monday: How to Eat Your Chocolate and Advance Development, Too
According to Global Financial Integrity, developing countries lost billions per year from 2000 to 2008 in money that is illegally earned, transferred or utilized, with a large portion coming from conflict cocoa. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a way to stop or limit funding conflict while eating chocolate too? Well, there is.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Impact Assessment
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The BoP Project: Focusing on Quality, Not Quantity, in Rwanda Coffee
Over the past ten years, a unique program has been brewing in the Rwandan coffee industry, relying on the international demand for high-quality, specialty coffee (not always "fair trade" certified), and helping increase the income of small coffee farmers in this rapidly growing country.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Can Matt Damon Bring Clean Water to Africa?
Once upon a time, Matt Damon went for a long walk in rural Zambia. The devoted family man and method philanthropist was accompanying a 14-year-old Zambian girl who had no idea that her hiking companion was an Academy Award-winning international heartthrob. The walk came toward the end of a 10-day African journey, a systematic primer on the complexities of the continent’s extreme poverty that had been organized for Damon by staffers from his friend Bono’s ONE campaign. Damon was ...
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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ViewChange Video of the Week: Entrepreneurs in Burkina Faso
With drought prevailing in areas bordering the Saharan desert, farmers in Burkina Faso are exploring alternative ways to generate income. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) supports a program that provides training and support to people with ideas that could be transformed into successful business ventures.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Ten Years From Now … A Day With the SOCAP/Europe Entrepreneurs
How could impact investing make a real difference on our everyday lives? NextBillion writer Martin Herrndorf takes a pleasant stroll through "Socapia" in May 2021, observing the impact of the winners of the SOCAP/Europe Social Entrepreneur Scholarship a decade later.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment
- Tags
- impact investing, solar
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ViewChange Video of the Week: Turning ’Chocolate Country’ into Co-Op Country
In the backcountry of the Dominican Republic, poor cacao farmers have been fighting a losing battle with the global economy for as long as anyone can remember. But the thriving Loma Guaconejo cooperative has found a way to turn the system on its head, sidestepping the middlemen and reaping increased profits for their goods.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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