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How a Social Entrepreneur Overcame His ‘Arrogant Failure’ and Won Kudos From Oprah
Lucky Iron Fish, a fast-growing social enterprise in Guelph, Ontario, wants to vanquish iron deficiency, a condition affects almost 3.5 billion people around the world.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Latest ‘Lemelson Foundation’ Report Spotlights Indian Inventors
A recent report by the Lemelson Foundation highlights financing, technical assistance, mentoring that offers concrete solutions to help invention based businesses thrive. World’s leading funder of invention in service of social and economic change, Lemelson Foundation examines India’s impact ecosystem that caters to the broad network of businesses, funders, and intermediaries that enable social enterprise and inventors potential to grow.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- impact investing
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Genocea Stops Pneumonia Vaccine Development After Study Fails
Drug developer Genocea Biosciences Inc said it was suspending the development of a vaccine for pneumonia-causing bacteria after it failed to significantly reduce infection in a mid-stage study.
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- Health Care
- Tags
- vaccines
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Indian Microfinance Institutions Have Just Busted a Myth
By definition, microfinance is the business of giving tiny loans to people who do not have access to formal banking services. The Investopedia website defines microfinance as a type of banking service that is provided to unemployed or low-income individuals or groups who would otherwise have no other means of gaining financial services. “...the goal of microfinance is to give-low income people an opportunity to become self-sufficient by providing a means of saving money, borrowing money and insurance,” it says. In India, microfinance institutions (MFIs) cannot collect deposits, but sell insurance products, besides offering small loans that are typically paid back in weekly or monthly instalments.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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5 Tools to Help Businesses Tackle the SDGs
Now that the Sustainable Development Goals have been signed and sealed, it is time for the private sector to deliver. For many businesses it is a difficult task, in large part because the objectives may seem abstract. Supporting a goal to end poverty in all its forms everywhere or to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls can come off more as moral aspirations than measurable deliverables.
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- Environment, Health Care
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Report: Safaricom Controls 90 Percent of Mobile Industry Earnings in Kenya
Safaricom dominates the Kenyan mobile market, sweeping up more than 90 per cent of revenues in areas such as voice calls and text messaging, according to regulator data that could further fuel a debate about competition in the industry.
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- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Proof That Government Development Aid Doesn’t Produce Economic Growth
One of the big questions in both politics and economics is whether government development aid actually produces economic growth in the recipient countries. There’s arguments either way of course: we could assume that poverty is the absence of the economic resources to produce the investment that leads to growth. We do rather assume this in the rich country economies after all: some capital is necessary to get a new business up and running to the point where it will contribute to the future increase in general wealth. So, maybe this is what ails the poor countries? At which point, given that many people think it’s a bit unfair that some parts of the world are so much richer than others then why shouldn’t some of the wealth be sent to the poverty?
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Report: Account Screening Consumer Reporting Agencies Impede Banking Access for Millions
While a lack of financial education is often cited as the key reason tens of millions of people across the country don't have bank or credit union accounts, in fact, millions are shut out from the mainstream banking system because of a small group of little-known companies who manage databases used by financial institutions to determine whether or not to allow a consumer to open an account. A new report released today by the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund (CFE Fund) and the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) entitled "Account Screening Consumer Reporting Agencies: A Banking Access Perspective"outlines the tremendous and deeply flawed role that "account screening consumer reporting agencies" (CRAs) play in determining whether consumers can obtain an account. The report raises concerns about these companies, financial institutions' use of their reports, and offers solutions both for industry leaders and regulators.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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