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Grounds for Health Launches New Program in Kenya
Grounds for Health, an international non-governmental organization dedicated to the prevention of cervical cancer in developing countries, today announced the expansion of its East Africa program to Kenya. The move into Kenya reflects the organization’s continued commitment to reach women living in high-risk regions and working in agricultural supply chains. Coffee industry partners providing start-up funds for Kenya include Atlas Coffee, Bennett’s Coffee, Coda Coffee, Peet’s Coffee and Tony’s Coffee. Additionally, this year the organization is celebrating its 20thyear working in coffee-growing communities. The organization made the announcement on the eve of this year’s Specialty Coffee Association of America’s annual conference taking place in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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IFC to Invest Up to $38M in Three Affordable Housing Finance Firms
International Finance Corporation (IFC) will invest up to $38 million in three housing finance companies in India, as the World Bank’s private-sector lending arm seeks to expand its presence in a segment that offers loans for low-cost houses.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- housing, microfinance
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Plan for Poorer Countries to Fund HIV Response Raises Concerns
Calls for low and middle income countries to contribute an additional 6.1 billion dollars to the global HIV response by 2020 could see some vulnerable groups left behind, said HIV activists meeting at the United Nations last week.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Easypaisa, Nestle Collaborate to Facilitate Dairy Farmer Payments in Pakistan
Providing financial access to thousands of Pakistani dairy farmers as part of its mission of empowering societies, Easypaisa has collaborated with Nestlé Pakistan to make disbursement of milk collection payments swift, easy, and transparent.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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An inflection point in the era of “farmer finance” for the world’s smallholders
A new study, “Inflection Point: Unlocking growth in the era of farmer finance,” suggests that while current efforts to expand financial inclusion are not sufficient to meet smallholder demand, concerted efforts around customer centricity, progressive partnerships, and smart subsidy have the potential to change the sector’s growth trajectory to best serve the world’s smallholder farmers.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Startup Rising Africa
It’s hard to get more American than generalizing Africa as one big homogenous thing. It is, of course, a rich and diverse continent of more than 50 nations, where merely a piece of it — say from Kenya to Nigeria — is a greater distance than the entire United States. Each country, and within each country, has distinctive languages, heritages, cultures and histories.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Pay-It-Forward Model Shows Potential for Microfinance in Developing Nations
Ten years ago, microfinance was celebrated with the Nobel Peace Prize for its potential to break people out of poverty. Today, the microfinance industry has grown to hundreds of institutions serving more than 150 million borrowers in the developing world, but is widely criticized for exploiting the world’s poor and, ultimately, making poverty worse.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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Drone Deliveries of Blood Could Transform Healthcare in Africa
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” While those words have traditionally been the unofficial motto of the U.S. Postal Service, they may apply just as well to the world’s first drone delivery service operating at a national scale–in Rwanda. That only sounds like an odd place for such a service to take flight until you hear what these 22-lb. custom-built autonomous airplanes are delivering: blood.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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