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Targeting the Urban Ultra Poor: Taking The Road Less Travelled
India’s urban population has surged from 78.9 million in 1961 to 286 million in 2001, and could double in another 25 years. To help those urban poor that are left out of microfinance programs, Kriti Social Initiatives decided it was essential for the pilot to include program components addressing livelihoods and healthcare.
- Categories
- Health Care
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SOCAP11: Waste Management that Works
Parag Gupta, founder and CEO of Waste Ventures recently told me that urban India produces a mound of garbage that weighs twice as much as the Empire State Building every week. In that big pile of trash, Gupta and his team identified a glowing opportunity for economic, social, and environmental impact.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
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Bangladesh’s Mobile Tech Surge, What It Means for Development
While mobile phones have increasingly become ubiquitous in developing countries, Bangladesh has taken the technology’s capabilities a step further. Many new initiatives have leveraged the sheer number of people using mobile phones: 76.4 million in Bangladesh. Neighboring countries have lagged behind in leveraging mobiles for development.
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- Health Care
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Bolivia’s First Crop Insurance Scheme Promises to Empower Farmers
Natural disasters can come with six-digit figures of damage and debt attached, even in Latin America’s poorest country. Bolivia ’s rural areas, still dependent on rain cycles, are the most financially vulnerable to drought, frost, hail, floods and other weather adversities. Lose your crops, farmers say, and you’re left with nothing but your debts. Luis Alvaro Toledo, who’s wo...
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- Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- nutrition
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Updated: The Ugly Truth About Famines
The drought, which spurred the UN to declare a famine for the first time since 1984, has affected the entire Horn of Africa, including much of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. And yet the only areas where the UN has officially declared a "famine" are two pockets of southern Somalia controlled by the al-Shabab militia.
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- Education, Health Care
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For Nuru, Energy Applies to Products and Microfranchises
Nuru Energy uses a multi-tier approach to developing and selling renewable energy devices, while steadily building a network of entrepreneurs. In September, Nuru will open offices in Uganda and Kenya, and plans to close the year with 170 microfranchises in Rwanda alone. The growth plans do not stop there.
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- Health Care
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Exploding Malaria With Human-Sized Microwaves
Around the world almost a million people die from malaria each year, and half the planet's population, 3.3 billion people, live at risk of contracting the disease , mostly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Treatments for malaria, however, have never been a high priority for pharmaceutical companies. Most victims have little or no ability to pay, and profit margins on vaccines are thin. Now, our few lines of defen...
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- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Low Maintenance, Low Cost, X-Runner Redefining the Toilet
X-Runner, a social venture based in Germany and India that has designed a low-cost mobile toilet suitable for urban slum households. The portable, low-water toilet is made of light-weight PPC material and costs $30 per unit. Included in that cost is a home service to remove the waste and deliver it to local biogas plant for eventual biogas use.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment
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