-
Indian American Social Entrepreneur Bhagwati Agrawal in CNN’s Top 10 Heroes List
Bhagwati Agrawal, an Indian American social entrepreneur, has advanced into CNN’s Top Ten Heroes of 2015 for creating a rainwater harvesting system that provided safe drinking water to more than 10,000 people across six villages in Rajasthan.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
-
These Solar-Powered Machines Help Farmers Dry Their Food Instead of Letting It Rot
A lot of food grown in developing countries never makes it to the people's bellies. Because of a lack of refrigeration, it rots during transport or when farmers fail to sell it immediately at markets. Every year, 1.3 billion tons of food (with a value of more than $1 trillion) is wasted in this way, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy
- Tags
- solar
-
MasterCard Foundation Investing $47M in Agricultural Finance Projects Across Africa
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has commended the MasterCard Foundation's pronouncement of investing $47 million in agricultural finance projects across Africa, including $15 million for a partnership with AGRA that will deliver financial support to 730,000 farming households.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- impact investing
-
MIT-USAID Program Releases Evaluation of Water Filters
The United Nations now estimates that 90 percent of the world’s population has access to improved drinking water. But the story of access to safe drinking water is more complex, especially when it comes to the 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2 a day: In developing countries around the world, tens of millions of people rely on water filtration and purification products each year to improve their drinking water in the absence of proper infrastructure providing clean water.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
-
Pacific-Rim Nations Led by U.S. Agree to Historic Trade Deal
A dozen Pacific-rim nations agreed to an historic pact that would cut trade barriers on items ranging from cars to rice, setting up a potentially contentious ratification vote before a skeptical U.S. Congress.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- public policy
-
IDB Loans $10M to Paraguay’s Vision Banco to Fund Water, Sanitation Facilities for Low-Income Populations
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a US-based multilateral finance institution that operates in Latin America and the Caribbean, recently approved a loan of USD 10 million to Vision Banco, a microfinance institution (MFI) in Paraguay. The loan will be disbursed from IDB’s Opportunities for the Majority Sector facility, which lends, invests equity, offers technical advice and provides partial guarantees and risk-sharing facilities to “companies, financial intermediaries … [and] non-profits that are willing to engage with the base of the socioeconomic pyramid”[4].
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
-
Partners in Food Solutions Announces New Corporate Partner, Expanded Impact in Africa
An international public-private partnership is expanding its efforts to strengthen Africa’s food system. The Hershey Company is joining Partners in Food Solutions, a Minnesota nonprofit, as its newest corporate partner.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- nutrition
-
Grameen Foundation Selected as a Global Resilience Challenge Winner
Grameen Foundation was selected by The Global Resilience Partnership to implement transformative resilience solutions to problems facing smallholder coconut and cocoa farmers in Southeast Asia. A global leader in innovations to help the world's poor, Grameen Foundation was among eight global teams in the Global Resilience Challenge, a multi-stage design competition that received nearly 500 initial applications to address the most difficult resilience challenges. The foundation will now receive up to $1 million to implement its proposed solution in a way that can be scaled and adopted by others in the future.
- Categories
- Agriculture
Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter, "NextBillion Notes"
Published each Wednesday, our e-newsletter features NextBillion's latest original articles, along with a selection of news, jobs, bizdev opportunities and events from our recent coverage — and regular conference ticket giveaways.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.