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Reimagining the Digital Architecture of Global Development: How Big Tech Can Bring the Sector into the Modern Age
The global development sector has grown into a sprawling ecosystem, including powerful multilaterals and millions of community-level NGOs worldwide. In the process, as social innovation advisor Rajat Ray explains, it has repeatedly reinvented its tools and techniques to handle the growing scale and depth of its work. But he argues that the reductions in traditional aid, the growing strain of modern operational demands and the emergence of advanced technologies like AI have brought the sector to a defining inflection point. He explores how its legacy tools and processes are falling short, and calls for a complete reimagining of the digital architecture that underpins global development, driven by multilateral leaders and Big Tech.
- Categories
- Technology
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Five35 Ventures Completes 1st Portfolio Exit, Generates 3.5x Return From Complete Farmer Investment
The Africa Growth Fund is a US$200 million fund-of-funds designed to strengthen African-led, women-led investment vehicles and enable them to invest in businesses with the potential to contribute to inclusive growth and job creation.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Electrification Takes Centre Stage as Hormuz Shock Spurs Countries to Seek to Enhance Energy Security
New IEA analysis, requested by Türkiye and Australia to inform COP31 discussions, finds cost-effective technologies can bring proposed 35% electrification target within ‘striking distance’
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- Technology
- Region
- Global
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US Agency to Invest $155 Million in African Digital Infrastructure Firm WIOCC
Washington has increasingly backed telecommunications and digital infrastructure projects in Africa as it seeks to provide alternatives to Chinese technology providers like Huawei, including through a $100 million loan to U.S.-owned telecoms operator Africell.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Report: GSMA Warns of Growing AI Divide as Smartphone Costs Rise in Emerging Markets
The report highlights a growing threat to digital inclusion: a sharp increase in the cost of smartphone memory and chipsets, driven by global demand for AI infrastructure and data centres.
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- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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NADF, German Firm Partner on Climate-Resilient Agricultural Finance
"The partnership is also expected to support the development of new or improved financial products for smallholder farmers, particularly those designed around the growing risks posed by climate change to agricultural production."
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- Agriculture, Environment, Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Press Release: Gates Foundation Commits US$1 Billion to Help Build and Deliver Equitable AI That Improves Health and Expands Opportunity
New Goalkeepers Report: AI could be a great equalizer, but only if it’s built intentionally to benefit the people who need it most.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Global
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PIDG and Impact Fund Denmark Invest $11.5 Million in Africa GreenCo
Africa GreenCo is a regional energy trader and intermediary offtaker. It buys electricity from renewable energy producers and sells it to utilities, private-sector customers and markets within the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). The
- Categories
- Energy, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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