NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Recruiting Women To The Burgeoning (But Mostly Male) Host Of Angel Investors

Women philanthropists have traditionally stood back from venture capital startups and angel investing; only 13% of angel investors in the U.S. are women. That’s why Natalia Oberti Noguera, a 2005 Yale graduate, founded an angel-investing bootcamp for women. Created to increase the ratio of women angel investors in the social good category, Oberti Noguera’s Pipeline Fellowship is announcing a call for applications for women philanthropists who want to be angel investors in s...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Agriculture, Health Care

From the Field: The Livestock Sector

Despite the clear value that livestock offers BoP farmers and producers offer, in Kenya it’s clear there many areas of the sector still could be enhanced. This includes moving toward decentralizing the animal health system, providing insurance to producers and educating livestock producers, all of which present opportunities for BoP ventures.

Categories

Agriculture

Tags

Base of the Pyramid

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

Tags

rural development

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

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

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

Tags

Base of the Pyramid

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 ...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Agriculture

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

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