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Sustainable development needs sustainable financing — tackling NCDs is no exception
Each year, 16 million people die prematurely before the age of 70 from NCDs. Strikingly, 4 out of 5 of these deaths occur in developing countries like Kenya, making such diseases one of the major development challenges of the 21st century. If countries don’t change tack on NCDs, an estimated $7 trillion could be lost in developing countries over the next 15 years.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
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U.N. Targets Trillions of Dollars to Implement Sustainable Development Agenda
After more than two years of intense negotiations, the U.N.’s 193 member states have unanimously agreed on a new Sustainable Development Agenda (SDA) with 17 goals — including the elimination of extreme poverty and hunger — to be reached by 2030.
- Categories
- Environment
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Hewlett Foundation Begins to Distance Itself from Financing Fossil Fuels
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the US’s biggest and most influential foundations, has taken a small step to distance itself from financing fossil fuels.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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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