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

Uganda: Understanding Consumer Protection in Microfinance

Lately, the Microfinance industry has come under the spot-light with critics arguing that microfinance institutions drifted away from their core and initial mission of working to uplift the poor out of poverty through micro loans. Critics argue that the entire microfinance business is now commercialized. This is what has probably resulted into draconian recovery methods; forexample in Mexico where loan officers take children after their parents are unable to make microfinance loans; to India ...

Source

allAfrica.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Social Performance Start-up Fund for Networks to be Launched Soon

The Social Performance Start-up Fund to support national microfinance networks in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, is scheduled to be launched in May, 2011. The project is funded by the Ford Foundation and will be implemented by the Microfinance Center (MFC). The SP Start-up Fund committee is the strategic advisory body for the Fund Management and will provide an opinion on the strategic decisions taken, on service providers, and ensure the accomplishment of objectives. The Social...

Source

Microfinance Focus (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Improving the Lot of Small Enterprises

To address the problems facing small enterprises, especially the micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the Nigeria MSME Project, a pilot initiative of the Federal Government and the World Bank in Abia, Kaduna and Lagos states, have come to the rescue. The trouble with small enterprises will always attract discussions. If you ask the small business owner what the trouble is, he will tell you it is funding. But he is wrong. True, funding is a problem, but it is not all the ...

Source

Business Day (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Why Many Social Problems are Entrepreneurial Problems

All problems that have unknown elements are entrepreneurial problems which means they require entrepreneurial management. However, although we often think of startups as being entrepreneurial, many social problems have elements that are unknown, which means they are entrepreneurial problems . Unfortunately, often people don’t recognize social problems as entrepreneursh...

Source

Forbes (link opens in a new window)

Microsoft Donates $250,000 of Software to Create IT Jobs for Youth in Kenya

Microsoft Corp. announced today a donation of software with a retail value of $250,000 to Digital Divide Data (DDD). The grant, from Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential program, will support DDD to bring its social business model to Kenya. The new venture will provide services such as data entry, XML conversion and digital preservation for publishers, libraries, content hosts, academic researchers and businesses. Microsoft’s software will be used to provide training and client servi...

Source

PRWeb (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Empowering Women With Microfinance: From Oxford, England to Lima, Peru

One week ago, I was on stage for the opening plenary of the Skoll World Forum in the scholarly, well-ordered university town of Oxford, England. Today, I am in the ramshackle home of an able, but very poor, businesswoman in the impoverished, raggedy outskirts of Lima, Peru. The connection? The Skoll World Forum is the preeminent global gathering of social entrepreneurs. Over 1,200 of the smartest, most...

Source

The Huffington Post (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

LeapFrog Invests $14M in Insurer Apollo

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- LeapFrog Investments has announced a landmark investment of $14 millioninto East African insurance group Apollo Investment Ltd, the largest deal in the history of microinsurance in Africa. Launched with President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2008, LeapFrog’s $135 million fund invests in companies providing insurance to under-served people in emerging markets. In Africa, LeapFrog...

Source

PR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Kenyan Women Pulling Together Against Poverty

KIAMBU DISTRICT, Kenya, Apr 13, 2011 (IPS) - When it works, it’s spectacular: Esther Ngonyo Njuguna’s dairy project stands as testimony to the potential of microcredit schemes to boost rural incomes. Eight years ago, Mama Njoki - "Njoki’s mother" as Njuguna is affectionately called in honor of one of her five children - says she was a housewife in the Kiambu District of Central Kenya. Her husband is an accountant, earning enough to cover household expenses. ...

Source

IPSNews.net (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa