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Indian MFIs Say All Is Now Well in Loan Repayment
While India’s cash-dominated microfinance sector was reeling under stress following the recall of high value currencies, sector leaders such as Ujjivan Financial Services and Bharat Financial Inclusion have come forward to defuse concerns raised by stakeholders.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Four Steps to Precision Public Health
When domestic transmission of Zika virus was confirmed in the United States in July 2016, the entire country was not declared at risk — nor even the entire state of Florida. Instead, precise surveillance defined two at-risk areas of Miami-Dade County, neighbourhoods measuring just 2.6 and 3.9 square kilometres. Travel advisories and mosquito control focused on those regions. Six weeks later, ongoing surveillance convinced officials to lift restrictions in one area and expand the other.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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To Stop Relying on Western Hand-Me-Downs, African Countries Are Importing Chinese Textile Companies
Every day the workers at C&H Garment Factory are required to learn a few words of Chinese. Today’s lesson, written on a whiteboard at the back of a humming factory floor, is the numbers 8, 9, and 10—written in Kinyarwanda, English, and Mandarin. “We’re a Chinese company so we want to introduce a little Chinese culture to them,” the textile company’s owner, Candy Ma, tells Quartz.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Borrowers may exploit loophole as eight MFIs transition to small banks in India
The transition of eight microfinance institutions (MFIs) to small finance banks has opened a new source of loans for their customers and potential worries on their repayment capacity.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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In Thailand, $3 a Month Could Boost Migrant Health
Among the estimated 1 million migrants living in Thailand along the remote Thai-Burmese border, threats to health abound.Infectious diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, diarrheal conditions and dengue fever run rampant.
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- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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America’s Poor Still Lack Access to Basic Banking Services
Despite a sprawling and varied financial industry, more than one-quarter of Americans don’t have adequate access to basic banking tools, such as checking accounts, credit cards, or loans for instance. That group—known as the underbanked—is made up of those who suffer the most from growing inequality and systemic marginalization: Americans with low incomes, those with less than a college degree, and minorities.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- North America
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A Zika vaccine is being developed at warp speed, but will there be a market for it?
When top US health authorities convened in late January to brief President Barack Obama on the Zika outbreak in Latin America, the post-meeting scuttlebutt was that the president was eager to push development of a Zika vaccine.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- North America
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Africa Finds Power Off the Grid
But recently those in areas without electricity are taking advantage of an alternative to traditional electric hookups that could help solve Africa’s power problem: off-grid solar home systems, which electrify houses with a battery-connected rooftop panel.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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