NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Citi Increases its Microfinance Work Across the Region

While most banks across Asia seem to be focusing on the high-net-worth market in Asia, some are also concentrating on the promising mass market. Most view licences in China as an opportunity to capitalise on the China Dream; others see microfinance as a means to build long-standing relationships across the region. According to the India Development Foundation, nearly 9 million Indian households that had access to microfinance moved above the $1.25 a day consumption threshold between 199...

Source

FinanceAsia (link opens in a new window)

Region

Asia Pacific

Tags

supply chains

G20 Faces Obstacles in its Efforts to Spread Good Farming Practices

Spreading good ideas and practices in farming sounds like a simple enough goal, but can be immensely complicated not just on a global level but also locally. Ahead of the G20 meeting in Montpellier, France, on agricultural research and development , which begins on Monday, Mark Holderness gives a telling example from his time working in Bangladesh. He urged female farmers to plant cleaner rice ...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

UN Helps Expand Tanzania’s Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction Plans

Tanzania expects to receive some $777 million from the United Nations as support for the implementation of two of the country’s economic growth and poverty reduction strategies. The funds will finance the second phases of Tanzania’s national strategy for growth and poverty reduction, or MKUKUTA II, and the Zanzibar strategy for growth and poverty reduction or MKUZA II, the East African Business Week rep...

Source

Devex (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Kenya: Survey of Female Farmers Uncovers Challenges

In Kenya, a gender-disaggregated agricultural survey targeting 2,500 households and 5,000 individuals in eight regions, seeks women’s input and data to inform agricultural policy. The survey shows that female farmers have limited access to finance, as few women own property they can use as collateral for loans. Another observation is that as agriculture becomes ’feminized’ and men abandon farms to work in cities. The survey was conducted by Egerton University’s Tegemeo I...

Source

Microfinance Focus (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Plan Farms for Climate Change: Minister

Adapting agriculture in Africa to accommodate drastic climate changes will reap benefits for future food security and the poor, International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane says. "Food security is important to Africa’s economy as it impacts heavily on a country’s poverty alleviation and sustainable development plans," she said at an African ministerial meeting on climate change in Johannesburg. "It is critical that governments and nations should...

Source

Times Live (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

India?s ’Biggest Entrepreneurial Event’ Set to Take Off Sept 30

New Delhi: The power of entrepreneurship and innovation to transform India into one of the leading economies of the world will be visible in full measure at the TiEcon Delhi 2011. The entrepreneurial event, among the biggest in Asia, begins on September 30 at Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi. The annual flagship event of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Delhi-NCR chapter, will see over 1500 attendees listen to the first CK Prahalad Memorial Lecture, set up in memory of the renowned Michigan Uni...

Source

Northern Voices Online (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Report Stresses Need to Identify the ’Poor’ in India

In India the poor are visible everywhere in villages, hamlets, in forestland or degraded lands, along coastal regions, in the mountains, in urban centres and in industrial areas. For all the visible signs of poverty, there is a huge chunk of these which are invisible. It comes back to the question of what makes the poor, poor. This is the question that should plague those who are at the forefront of polic...

Source

Medindia.net (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Microcredit and Lamia Karim’s ’Women in Debt in Bangladesh’

Taj Hashmi in the first part of his two-part review A report by the Government of Bengal in the 1930s revealed that a poor peasant from Mymensingh district in eastern Bengal (Bangladesh since 1971) had told a land revenue official in 1929: "My father, Sir, was born in debt, grew in debt and died in debt. I have inherited my father’s debt and my son will inherit mine." Following the introduction of microcredit, glorified as microfinance by its local and international promoters, ...

Source

The Financial Express (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia