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How The World Works: The Difference Between Calves and Cows
On the same day that Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and chief apostle of the church of microcredit, received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Center for Global Development (CGD), a Washington nonprofit, published a study by David Roodman and Uzma Qureshi with the title Microfinance as Business. Microfinance is generally taken to mean the provision of small loans -- microcredit -- and other financial services to very poor people, and Yunus is widely acclaimed as the ...
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Phoney Finance
LIFE is now easier for Andile Mbatha, who owns a hair salon in Soweto. Gone are his days of trekking to his bank, which could take two hours by minibus, to send money to relatives. Nor does he keep piles of cash in his salon any more. Last year, he opened a bank account with Wizzit, an innovative provider of financial services. He now sends money to his sister in Cape Town whenever he wants, from wherever he wants, using a simple menu on his mobile phone. Half his customers no longer pay cash fo...
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India has most innovative social entrepreneurs
India is a key country to look for leading social entrepreneurs, says Klaus Schwab, executive chairman and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), as his Schwab Foundation prepares to shortlist a winner for the Indian Social Entrepreneur Award for the second year. India has some of the most advanced and innovative social entrepreneurs. We believe and already see that many of the models developed in India, for instance rainwater harvesting for schools pioneered by Barefoot Col...
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Engaging India: Rural Technology
What does giving small loans of less than $100 to India?s poor have to do with mobile phones? The potential in this answer could help more of India?s 75m very poor households lift themselves out of poverty while adding momentum to the world?s fastest-growing mobile phone market. Let?s start with telecommunications. India recently overtook China as the fastest growing mobile phone market in terms of new monthly subscribers. More than 6m new mobile phone subscriptions were logged in Sep...
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Call for caution over migrants’ cash
The World Bank will on Tuesday urge policymakers to take a more cautious approach towards the development potential of remittances, the multi-billion dollar financial flows sent home by migrant workers in North America, Europe and Asia. In a report analysing their significance in Latin America and the Caribbean, bank economists argue that remittances are not ?manna from heaven?, that the benefits have been ?overestimated? and that associated social and economic costs in developing cou...
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- migrants
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Migrants’ Money is Imperfect Cure for Poor Nations
It’s the sort of scene that many development economists believe could transform some of the world’s most impoverished regions, by putting cash directly in the pockets of the poor. With tens of millions of migrants around the globe sending remittances home, the flood of money has grown immense -- $167 billion last year, according to the World Bank. This lively mountain town survives on money sent from its sons and daughters living in the U.S. On days payments arrive, lines at the lo...
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- migrants
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Safaricom Makes $12.77 Million Profit, a Record for Region
Mobile company Safaricom has posted the biggest profit ever in East Africa - Ksh 12.77 billion ($174 million) - edging out listed company East African Breweries Ltd from the position of the biggest profit maker in the region. The star performance is likely to impact on the negotiations going on between the government and Vodafone Plc of the UK over the impending sale of a 9 per cent government stake in the company to Vodafone. Analysts say that the government is likely to d...
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Social Business Corporations
Two weeks ago, there was a government assembly and the Prime Minister presented new projects for the government. As Kazakhstan Today reports, Social Business Corporations were on the list. ?Sara Arka? will be the first, to be established in Karaganda (because the akim there was on the ball, they say). By the end of the year, six more will be established in the regions. These corporations were first brought up in the President?s Annual Message to the People in February of 2006:
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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