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You Asked, We Answer: Can Microloans Lift Women Out Of Poverty?
You've probably heard the stories. A desperately poor woman in a poor country gets a tiny loan — a couple hundred dollars. It's the break she's always needed. With that money she can finally buy the materials to start a small business. She turns a profit. Her income rises. Now she has money to expand her business even further, buy her kids more nutritious food, pay their school fees. Over time, she lifts her whole family out of poverty.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Namibia Welcomes its First Batch of Locally Trained Doctors
Patients in Namibia can now be treated by locally trained doctors who the government hopes will help transform the country’s health sector, according to BBC. Before the country’s first medical school was opened in 2010, medical students in Namibia had to seek training overseas. Some went to neighboring South Africa, while others traveled to as far as Russia and China.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public health, research
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Smart Campaign and The MasterCard Foundation in Partnership to Advance Consumer Protection in Financial Services
"It's important to certify the practices of individual financial institutions, but we will not create wholesale, sustainable change until we galvanize the support all of the partners involved in serving low-income people, including regulators and new, technology-based service providers. We must also make a concerted effort to champion the client's perspective," said Isabelle Barrès, Director of the Smart Campaign.
- Categories
- Technology
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Kenya Telcos, Vendors Now on the Spot for Hidden Costs
Many Kenyans have come to value the convenience of mobile money payments, but a consumer organisation has raised the red flag over the hidden costs.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The All-Terrain Wheelchair Designed for People in Developing Countries
Social enterprise, Uji, has designed a wheelchair for disabled people living in developing countries.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Fintech Holds The Key To Myanmar’s Future
As recently as 2013, CNN described Myanmar’s banking system as “outdated and debased, open for decades to abuse by the previous regime, and shunned by about 90 percent of the population.”
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- fintech, mobile finance
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Can renewable energy help address poverty in China?
China is fast becoming a green energy superpower, leading the world in investment and installation of low-carbon technology. The most widely discussed drivers of this renewables surge include the desire to cut greenhouse gas emissions, boost energy security and catch up with, or overtake, industrialised countries in technological innovation.
- Region
- South Asia
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Taste of solar power builds appetite for more in Kenya, survey finds
Fuel-seller Nancy Kaisa has for years used solar power to light her premises at the Entasopia shopping center in Kajiado, in southern Kenya. But recently she’s started using energy from a solar mini-grid system to operate her fuel pumps and meet her other energy needs, ditching her diesel generator.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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