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Snack-bag of African nuts feeds ambitions of Montreal entrepreneurs
“Bring back some precious stones or money,” Thamarah Mathurin told her partner, François Boisrond, when he left home in 2014 to set up an export venture in Africa. However, the Haitian-born entrepreneur found the continent’s gemstone trade too precarious, unregulated, and too dangerous in some countries for business investment.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- North America
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‘Fintech startups in Middle East, North Africa raised $100m last decade’
Fintech startups in the Middle East and North Africa have raised $100-million over the last decade, yet 28% fail in their initial years, says a new report by business support organisation Wamda and online payment gateway Payfort.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
- Tags
- fintech
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Promoting health innovation in Nigeria through private sector intervention
Despite the large number of investments made in Nigeria’s health sector over the past 10 years, the attraction in achieving the desired results of improved health outcomes could be better.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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IKEA aims to take 200,000 people out of poverty in massive social sustainability drive
IKEA is to open production centres in refugee camps in Jordan this summer as part of a long-term plan to create employment for 200,000 disadvantaged people around the world through social entrepreneurship programmes.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
- Tags
- employment, manufacturing, refugees
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India’s attempt to go cashless is turning food vouchers digital
India's push for a digital, cashless society is well-documented by now. After last year's currency ban, the country has pushed cashless transactions in every sphere of citizen life — from payments at the local grocer and refuels at gas stations to utility bill payments and more.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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New Impact Investing Benchmarks to Arrive
The global-investment firm Cambridge Associates will unveil in a couple weeks real-asset impact-investing benchmarks in real estate, infrastructure, and timber. The new benchmarks “focus on the financial performance of the private funds, categorizing them by year and size,” says Jessica Matthews, managing director at Cambridge Associates.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Two new MFIs raise hopes for Indian sector amid repayment trouble
Microfinance companies may be in the hot seat after demonetisation-led non-repayment of loans and Uttar Pradesh government's farm loan waiver announcement, but there are people who are still keen to put money in a market where borrowers in general take joint liability to repay loans.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- South Asia
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Tanzania: 47% of GDP Transferred in Mobile Money Revolution
When Vodacom introduced the mobile money transfer service, M-Pesa, in 2008 financial inclusion in the country was below 16 per cent. Only eight years later, financial inclusion increased fivefold to reach 86 per cent putting Tanzania well ahead of most Sub-Saharan African countries.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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