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USAID Announces A New Development Impact Bond
Launched Thursday, the Utkrisht Impact Bond, named for the Hindi expression for excellence, will fund maternal and newborn health in the Indian state of Rajasthan. DIBs are results-based contracts, in which investors — in this case UBS Optimus Foundation, a grantmaking organization focused on improving the lives of children — provide financing for social programs upfront.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- impact investing
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Developing countries will get sick before they get rich
Residents of developing nation cities are increasingly susceptible to obesity, particularly amid the mega-trends of urbanization, globalization, and industrialization of food supply. According to India’s National Institute of Nutrition, over a quarter of urban-dwelling men and nearly half of women are overweight.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Value, Not Volume: Four Ways Entrepreneurs Can Help Restore Trust in India’s Health Care Providers
India’s health care providers are facing a crisis of public distrust, and at its root is the way care is paid for. Most health care is delivered by the private sector, where providers earn based on the quantity of procedures, tests and consultations delivered – whether or not those services make patients healthier. Patients know that this profit motive can lead to excessive and costly care, but most have neither the knowledge nor confidence to question a provider’s judgment. Chintan Maru discusses ways to restore their trust.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- public health
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AI chip could help conquer superbugs, infectious diseases and cancer
A new artificial intelligence chip that could help redefine how global health challenges - from superbugs to infectious diseases and cancer - are conquered is being developed by an American firm using Arm designs.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Study: 1 in 10 medical products in developing countries is substandard or falsified
“Substandard and falsified medicines particularly affect the most vulnerable communities,” says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Imagine a mother who gives up food or other basic needs to pay for her child’s treatment, unaware that the medicines are substandard or falsified, and then that treatment causes her child to die. This is unacceptable. Countries have agreed on measures at the global level – it is time to translate them into tangible action.”
- Categories
- Health Care
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Blockchain: A new technology for global health development?
Blockchain, the technological innovation behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, has wide applications beyond finance, such as in global health.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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The world is off track in its goal to eliminate malaria. Here’s why.
“We are not seeing the progress that had been achieved in the past being sustained,” Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO’s Global Malaria Program, told reporters in a telephone briefing last week. “Reductions in disease and death have ceased, and we are therefore not on track to meet the 2020 target.”
- Categories
- Health Care
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Blended Finance Gets a $500 Million Boost: Convergence CEO Discusses Groundbreaking Partnership with IFC
US $2.5 trillion: That’s the estimated funding gap the world needs to close in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. To achieve this daunting goal, says Convergence CEO Joan Larrea, “We need to tap into new sources of capital, particularly from private investors” – a goal Convergence advances by connecting, educating and supporting investors to execute blended finance transactions. This approach recently got a half billion dollar shot in the arm; our interview with Larrea reveals how.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
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