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Kenyan president proposes tax hike on money transfer services
Kenya’s biggest mobile phone operator Safaricom said in June it is opposed to a proposed tax rise on mobile phone-based transfers, arguing that it would likely mostly hurt the poor, most of whom do not have bank accounts and rely on mobile transfer services such as Safaricom’s M-Pesa.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: Why Foundations Should Step Up Their Game In Impact Investing
“It’s not enough to build a business that is doing good in the world,” says Laurie Lane-Zucker, founder and CEO of Impact Entrepreneur. “We also need to create a business paradigm that reflects the same triple-bottom-line brain chemistry.”
- Categories
- Investing
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$300 Million Loan to Boost Filipinos’ Access to Financial Services
The project will help the government strengthen the country’s institutional and policy environment for expanding financial services, invest in support networks and infrastructure such as the national retail payment system and the new national identification system, and improve the abilities of financial institutions, including rural banks, to offer financial products, particularly through the application of new technologies.
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Which Foreign Aid Programs Work? The U.S. Runs A Test — But Won’t Talk About It
Handel wasn't ready to propose completely scrapping traditional programs in favor of cash aid. But at the very least it seemed reasonable to make sure that any given traditional program produced more benefits than simply giving people an equivalent amount in cash. In other words, he wanted to use cash aid as the benchmark by which all other forms of aid are judged.
- Region
- North America
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Press release: Essmart raises US$1.2M in financing for scaling innovative kirana shop network
Essmart, a last-mile distribution company for socially impactful goods in India, has closed US$1.2M in financing. The round was a mix of equity, debt, and grant funding from elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization, Partners Group Impact Verein, DEG – Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft MBH, and Swiss Re Foundation.
- Source
- Press release
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- South Asia
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Emerging Tech Will Create More Jobs Than It Kills by 2022, World Economic Forum Predicts
There’s a lot of uncertainty right now about the future of work, and how emerging technologies will change the nature and availability of jobs in the coming years. It’s tempting and wholly reasonable to believe, as so many do, that technological advances, particularly in the areas of robotics and AI, will result in massive unemployment. At the same, technological progress could also create new opportunities and completely new forms of employment.
- Categories
- Technology
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Report: Digital Will Influence $4 Trillion in Retail Purchases in Emerging Markets by 2022
Half of the population in emerging markets worldwide is now connected to the internet, the report says—a stunning increase from 2010, when fewer than a quarter of those in emerging markets were online. In addition, by 2022, nearly 900 million more emerging-market consumers will be online, versus just 80 million new internet users in developed markets.
- Source
- Press release
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- e-commerce
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Viewpoint: AI has far-reaching consequences for emerging markets
The US and China are predicted to capture about 70 per cent of the estimated US$15.7 trillion in wealth that AI will generate globally by 2030.
- Categories
- Technology
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