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‘Explore cocoa potential,’ ICCO urges manufacturers
The International Cocoa Coordination Organisation (ICCO), on Wednesday, urged Nigerian manufacturers to explore the potential of cocoa, so as to produce more cocoa-based goods.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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FXB International Releases Graduate Tracer Study
(New York, NY) – Today FXB International released a Graduate Tracer Study. Among the exciting results include findings that, from their starting point as the poorest households in their communities, FXB-Village participants in Rwanda and Uganda show greatly increased income and savings. Additionally, the study shows that FXB-Village participants have vastly improved access to clean drinking water and are more likely to own their homes, and children are much more likely to be enrolled in school than they were at the beginning of the program. In each of the three study areas, the results show that the FXB-Village program significantly improves the lives of these participants.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Brazil’s historically poor northeast finally gets its boom
RECIFE, Brazil — The Brazilian state of Pernambuco was once known for its vast plains of parched dirt and roving bandits called cangacos, who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. For later generations, escaping the widespread poverty of the northeast customarily meant moving to livelier southeastern cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, though many migrants still ended up living in favelas, or slums.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Region
- Latin America
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A Middle Man Could Bring Smartphones to Millions of Mexicans for the First Time
After two years of intentionally losing money in a very smart way, a Mexican cell phone company is set to change the way the country’s consumers use mobile phones to access the internet. If their plan works, it could transform not only the Mexican phone industry, but consumer finance systems in developing countries around the globe.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Reality Check at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Most companies trying to do business with the 4 billion people who make up the world’s poor follow a formula long touted by bottom-of-the-pyramid experts: Offer products at extremely low prices and margins, and hope to generate decent profits by selling enormous quantities of them. This “low price, low margin, high volume” model has held sway for more than a decade, largely on the basis of Hindustan Unilever’s success in selling Wheel brand detergent to low-income consumers in India.
- Region
- South Asia
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The ‘Grandfather’ of Social Enterprise, Steve Lawrence Dies
The man described as the the grandfather of social enterprise in Australia, Steve Lawrence has died after a long battle with cancer aged 60.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Scaling up the fight against poverty and hunger in Africa
Agriculture is a powerful tool for reducing poverty and hunger. Events of recent years – such as food price increases, droughts, growing climate change impacts and other emergencies – have put agriculture high on the international agenda.We should be clear that agriculture is the solution. Economic growth generated by agriculture is more than twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. Agricultural development is also an effective means of assisting developing countries in building capacity and infrastructure as well as introducing innovation and technology.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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India Government Introduces Bill to Regulate Microfinance
NEW DELHI – The Indian government Tuesday introduced a bill in Parliament that will give power to the country's central bank to regulate the microfinance sector, where companies lend to small borrowers.Introduced in the lower house of Parliament by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Microfinance Institutions (Development and Regulations) Bill will give powers to the Reserve Bank of India to set the maximum interest rate that can be charged by micro lenders.The RBI will also set performance standards for the institutions and ensure that they use "fair and reasonable methods" for the recovery of loans.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- microfinance
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