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Ex-Starbucks Exec Helps Develop Global Eye Banks
Some 10 million people suffer from corneal blindness. It’s relatively rare in the U.S., and if you have it, you’re likely to have a corneal transplant and your vision will be restored. But in the developing world, where most corneal blindness occurs, it’s a different matter. Now, a Seattle-based nonprofit is applying lessons learned in the coffee business in its efforts to bring sight to as many people as it can. Tucked away in a downtown Seattle office building is one...
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PPAF Sets Up Wind Turbines, Solar Panels for Power Generation
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), in partnership with Aga Khan Planing and Building Services- Pakistan (AKPBS-P), has set up wind turbines and solar panels to provide environmentally friendly electricity to approximately 6,500 people in 29 villages of district Thatta in Sindh province. According to PPAF sources, the AKPBS-P, with the support from PPAF, the World Bank and the contribution by the village residents in the form of unskilled labour, installed 29 wind t...
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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The Middle East’s Other Boom: Entrepreneurship
Just as 1960s counterculture was responsible for the ’80s high-tech explosion, the revolutionary wave sweeping the Middle East will trigger a boom in entrepreneurship-but this time the change will be measured in months, not decades. Like many people, I have been watching the events unfolding in the Middle East with a jaw hovering somewhere near the floor. And curiously enough, many of the thought...
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India Set to Regulate Microlenders
NEW DELHI - The Indian government plans to introduce a bill to regulate microfinance institutions that will seek to prevent them from charging very high interest rates and taking deposits, a senior finance ministry official said Friday. The bill, which will be in line with a central bank-appointed panel’s recommendation, is likely to be placed before parliament this year. Microlenders like sector leader SKS Microfinance Ltd. give loans as little as $20-$25 to small entrepreneu...
- Region
- South Asia
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Accion Extends Credit Guarantees Worth $1.5 Million to 2 MFIs
New Delhi, Mar 1 (PTI) Non-profit group Accion International today said it has extended credit guarantees worth USD 1.5 million to two micro finance companies in India. Accion has issued a USD 1 million standby letter of credit (SBLC) for its partner Swadhaar FinServ and another guarantee worth USD 500,000 to Bihar-based Saija Finance. The credit guarantees helped Swadhaar FinServ and Saija Finance secure loan facilities to the tune of Rs 50 million and Rs 30 million, ...
- Region
- South Asia
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Start Ups: Rising Tide of Angels Boosts Seed Capital
Scores of angels are descending on India’s booming entrepreneurial sector as risk capital for very early stage firms emerges as a profitable investment category. In Mumbai, early stage investment firm Seedfund ha...
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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BBC: Bangladesh Nobel Winner Muhammad Yunus is Sacked
Bangladeshi Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been fired from the Grameen microfinance bank he founded, bank officials have told the BBC. "Bangladesh Bank has relieved Yunus of his duties as managing director of the Grameen Bank," Muzammel Huq, Grameen Bank chairman said. Correspondents say that the removal of Prof Yunus is the culmination of a long-running feud with the government. He fell out with PM Sheikh Hasina in 2007 when trying to set up a new party. The govern...
- Region
- South Asia
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Patagonia, Adidas, Walmart Join Sustainable Apparel Coalition
What happens when you put executives from Walmart and Patagonia in a room? This isn’t the start of a bad joke--it’s how the Sustainable Apparel Coalition was born. The seeds of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition were planted in 2009 when Patagonia and Walmart teamed up to help the latter company create a sustainability assessment tool for its supply chain (Patagonia was also working o...
- Categories
- Education
- Region
- Latin America
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