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Are Governments ‘Paying for Failure’ With Social Impact Bonds?
Three years ago, New York City launched an ambitious and unprecedented social policy experiment at its jail on Rikers Island. Thousands of teenage inmates began receiving group therapy aimed at improving their moral reasoning by addressing their beliefs and thought processes in a step-by-step treatment. The goal was to reduce the number of repeat offenses once the inmates were released. Academic studies using the method, known as moral reconation therapy, had reported success in reducing recidivism. Still, no one had ever scaled up these studies to accommodate anything like the 9,240 inmates the four-year Rikers Island program aimed to serve. This month, the program is coming to an abrupt end.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- failure, impact bonds, public policy
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A New Model of Health Workforce Training
A new model of health workforce training has the potential to be an innovative, cost-effective, catalytic initiative that can build national health systems, empower women and make itself obsolete in a decade.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
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East Africa Emerges as Global Hub for Impact Investing
Investments focused on fostering social or environmental goals are playing an increasing role in East Africa, which a new report says is a global center for so-called impact investing.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- impact investing
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Viewpoint: The Emperor Has No (Green) Clothes
A shiny new object is popping up in impact investment portfolios everywhere – behold, the green bond. A corporate or municipal fixed income instrument offering both market returns AND positive environmental impact, green bonds have emerged over the past six months as a significant area of new issuance. Corporations are issuing carve-out bonds whose proceeds go to infrastructure retrofits, while munis are hopping on the green bandwagon with bonds targeting a wide range of applications, from “clean and green” to affordable housing and school construction.
- Categories
- Environment
- Tags
- impact investing
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Can a High-Tech Wood Stove Save the World?
So, this is cool. It's a stove, powered by wood or cow dung or whatever other combustible material you happen to have lying around, that generates an almost smokeless, gas-like flame -- and also enough electricity to light a room or charge your phone.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
- Tags
- public health
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IDB Approves Climate-Smart Agriculture Fund
First-of-its-kind fund will support investments that increase rural livelihoods, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance biodiversity.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
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Education Start-up, The Un-School of Disruptive Design, Announces Mexico City Fellowship for Emerging Leaders
Following a successful program in NYC, the Un-School has opened applications for mavericks and misfits of social innovation to join them in Mexico this November.
- Source
- Press Release
- Categories
- Education, Environment
- Region
- Latin America
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Financial Inclusion Key to Climate Risk Reduction for Zambia’s Smallholders
In the advent of unpredictable weather, smallholder rain-dependent agriculture is increasingly becoming a risky business and the situation could worsen if, as seems likely, the world experiences levels of global warming that could lead to an increase in droughts, floods and diseases, both in frequency and intensity.
- Categories
- Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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