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Pneumonia responsible for 20% of child deaths
Global health bodies highlight essential interventions that will help reduce the incidence of pneumonia as the disease remains the single biggest killer of children under five globally. Pneumonia claims the lives of more than 1 million girls and boys every year despite pneumonia deaths being preventable.
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- Health Care
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Telecoms firms pin hopes on mobile banking
Cellular operators want to open up their networks for more banking transactions as they have pinned their hopes on mobile money to grow revenues in the future. According to Fredrik Jejdling, Ericsson’s sub-Saharan African regional head, the most downloaded mobile apps in Africa now were banking apps. Social networks were the second most downloaded.
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What General Electric’s Big Bet On Crowdfunding Looks Like
If you're closely watching the developing situation around crowdfunding, one of the themes you start to see is that expertise matters - and therefore the whole crusade to provide a platform for funding but little else may need to be reevaluated. Because investors that only provide capital and not industry knowledge and contacts are shortchanging the entrepreneur.
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- crowdfunding
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Financial Inclusion By 2020: Our Generation’s Equivalent of Putting a Man on the Moon
Organizations like the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and the World Bank have recently set a goal by 2020 of achieving full financial inclusion for the 2.5 billion people – about half the planet – who don’t participate in the financial mainstream. Bringing one in two people across the globe into the financial fold is a formidable challenge. Can it be done?
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A data-driven perspective on Islamic finance
In an effort to add some empirical rigor to ongoing debates surrounding Islamic finance, a new working paper and Findex Note explore differences in the usage of formal financial services between Muslims and non-Muslims, and the usage of and preference for Sharia-compliant banking products.
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- Education
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Mobile banking without a phone: Here comes the bank van
In Uganda, Rwanda, and the Philippines mobile banking vans reach out to the rural poor as an alternative to cell phone banking schemes.
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Microinsurance: Ripe for Disruption
The microinsurance market grew to more than 500 million risks in 2011, from 78 million risks in 2006, and could be as large as 360 million people in Latin America alone, according to a report from Celent.
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- Education
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- research
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World Bank says expanded access to banking services comes with risks
In a new report, the World Bank warns that while some services, like low-fee accounts, clearly benefit the poor and small firms, others - such as microcredit, microinsurance, and debt relief - can do more harm than good.
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