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Bolivia’s First Crop Insurance Scheme Promises to Empower Farmers
Natural disasters can come with six-digit figures of damage and debt attached, even in Latin America’s poorest country. Bolivia ’s rural areas, still dependent on rain cycles, are the most financially vulnerable to drought, frost, hail, floods and other weather adversities. Lose your crops, farmers say, and you’re left with nothing but your debts. Luis Alvaro Toledo, who’s wo...
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- nutrition
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Social Innovation to Reinvent the Toilet
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wants social innovation to rethink the technology of the flush toilet. The Foundation has created a competition, ’Reinvent the Toilet’, which is open to researchers at eight universities who have the opportunity to win an attractive prize of $3 million. The challenge is to use technology to create toilet models that do not need to be connected to sewers, water and electric...
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Microfinance Records Lowest Investment Growth in Six Years ? MicroRate
According to MicroRate’s ’The State of Microfinance Investment 2011’ report, the lingering effects of the economic crisis led to the lowest microfinance investment growth rate observed in the past 6 years, with total Microfinance Investment Vehicle (MIV) assets growing 12% in 2010. Rating agency MicroRate has been doing annual survey and analysis of MIVs for the last six years and this year it received information from 80 MIVs covering 92% of global assets under management. ...
- Region
- Latin America
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Solar Irrigation Solutions in Africa
When you have to hand-deliver water to irrigate your farm, you aren’t going to have the best possible crop yields. If you have to pay for water from a nearby pump, if one exists, you’re not going to be able to get very much if your total budget is less than a dollar a day and your crop yield is still going to be pretty limited. But if you can manage to access the underground water table using a solar-powered pump that does not cost much to run, you can ease the burden of everyda...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How One Woman May Bring Safe Water to Millions
When Cynthia Koenig, from New York, realized that one in six people lack reliable access to water she wanted to do something about it. Her solution was a 25-gallon drum that can be pushed or pulled and takes away much of the burden of carrying water on the head, which is the traditional method women use in many parts of the world. Koenig considers herself a social entrepreneur, a new breed of entrepreneur who has innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems ...
- Region
- South Asia
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Greenway Smart Stove: A Cleaner Smarter Stove for 150 Million BoP Households
Newly minted MBA graduates in their mid-20’s, especially from top-tier business schools, are supposed to be working at a multi-national bank or maybe a Hindustan Lever, right? Not if you are Neha Juneja and Ankit Mathur who decided to take the less beaten path of social entrepreneurship by founding Greenway Grameen Infrastructure. Zeroing in on the stove Their journey started innocuously enough. A series of consulting gigs in the environment domain gave Neha a...
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The Women Bringing Solar Power to Sierra Leone
A group of 12 women from villages in Sierra Leone is in the frontline of a battle to bring solar-powered electricity to rural communities. No small feat, given that rural Sierra Leone is not connected to power. The women were all trained at Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, in western ...
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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9 Million Indian Microfinance Clients Crossed $1.25 a Day Threshold
Counting the net number of people who crossed from below the USD 1.25 a day consumption in India between 1990 and 2010, a study by India Development Foundation (IDF) shows that nearly 9 million Indian households involved in microfinance - including approximately 45 million family members moved above USD 1.25 threshold during the last two decades. According to the IDF report which was released by the Microcredit Summit Campaign, a program of the US-based advocacy group RESULTS Educationa...
- Region
- South Asia
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