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Pakistan polio outbreak puts global eradication at risk
A Taliban ban on vaccination is exacerbating a serious polio outbreak in Pakistan, threatening to derail dramatic progress made this year towards wiping out the disease worldwide, health officials say.Health teams in Pakistan have been attacked repeatedly since the Taliban denounced vaccines as a Western plot to sterilize Muslims and imposed bans on inoculation in June 2012.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- public health
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Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority Launches Micro-insurance
The Financial Services Authority (OJK) hopes a newly launched blueprint will support the marketing and implementation of micro-insurance products across Indonesia by 2016.According to OJK commissioner overseeing non-banking financial industry Firdaus Djaelani, it is expected that the blueprint will help expand the micro-insurance segment in the domestic market.
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- Uncategorized
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Rwanda: ‘Ensuring Universal Access to Financial Services Key Priority’
Increasing access to financial services is one of the Government's priorities as Rwanda looks to ensure a self-reliant populace, John Rwangombwa, the central bank governor, has said."Rwanda's vision is to ensure financial inclusion, especially for the rural masses. In fact, we have made significant progress towards this target. So far, we have been able to double formal financial inclusion from 21 per cent of adults in 2008 to 42 per cent as at the end of last year," Rwangombwa noted.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Nigeria’s Bank of Industry Seeks to Empower Women with Financial Inclusion Strategy
For Nigeria to realise its economic goals, a paradigm shift in the nation’s financial inclusion strategy may have become imperative.This was the view of the Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BoI), Ms. Evelyn Oputu during at the microfinance conference organized by LAPO Microfinance Bank Limited in Lagos, yesterday.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Bitcoin Is A Remarkable Innovation, Here’s Why It Will Fail
Bitcoin has succeeded where many other virtual currencies have failed because it was designed to be as similar to cash as possible while still being digital.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- remittances
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Birth advice by text message: Phone medicine saving lives in Kenya
A young woman steals her way down darkened passages in Korogocho -- one of Kenya's largest slums. Crime, prostitution and drug use are rampant in the locality where a quarter of a million people reside and the young woman's eyes dart around erratically on the lookout for danger. It should be one of the happiest days of her life -- she is pregnant and has just gone into labor. She is also one of the fortunate few that can afford to go to hospital. Some women face a homebirth where, instead of medical equipment, they must make do with cotton wool and razorblades. But the journey to hospital leaves her vulnerable to opportunistic assault.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public health
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Low-cost healthcare: US can take cue from India
The United States may be good at innovations in medicines, procedures and equipment. But it should learn from India how to keep health care affordable, says a new study. India's private hospitals provided world-class health care at a fraction of US prices using innovative ways to manage costs, personnel, equipment and even real estate.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Mobile money growth accelerates as operators adopt new innovations
The volume of mobile money transactions processed in Nigeria is gathering momentum after a slow start as operators adopt new innovations.In June, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reported that licensed operators had processed transactions amounting to N64 billion in the previous 12 months, however 60 percent of the total had taken place in the final three months.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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