NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Microcredit programs offer way to get ahead without being exploited

ACCRA, Ghana - The sparkling new bank, down the street from Accra’s bustling Makola market, looks like a financial institution anywhere: six busy teller windows, a new accounts desk, air conditioning holding the steamy heat outside at bay. But for Ghanaians who have never had access to banking services before, it represents a revolution. After years of seeking small loans from loan sharks, family members and nonprofit microcredit programs, they now have what they never had befor...

GENEVA , May 29 (IPS) - The World Health Assembly concluded its annual session over the weekend with the adoption of a resolution that could change the concept of drug R&D, and open the door to a system that gives the world’s poor greater access to medicines. The resolution approved by the Assembly, the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO), urges the 192 member states to make the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals a strategic sector, thus committin...

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Inter Press Service News Agency (link opens in a new window)

Tools for Poor Farmers

To Martin Fisher, 48, and Nick Moon, 51, a simple pump could be the solution to poverty for millions of Africans. They’re the co-founders of KickStart, a San Francisco--based nonprofit that encourages rural entrepreneurship by providing tools that Africa’s poor can afford. Since the group was founded in Nairobi in 1991 under the name ApproTEC, it has developed a machine to make building blocks, a press that extracts cooking oil from seeds, a hay baler and a series of hand-operated micro-...

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Time Magazine (link opens in a new window)

Using the Same Tape Measure: MicroRate To Launch Tool for Rating Microfinance Funds

by Bill Baue The rating tool, a project supported by Gray Ghost Microfinance Fund, Omidyar Network, and Gates Foundation, is yet another step toward establishing microfinance as a distinct asset class. Microfinance, which provides tiny loans to help people bootstrap out of poverty by running small (often one-person) businesses, took another step toward becoming a distinct asset class with the advent of a mechanism for objectively rating microfinance fu...

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Social Funds.com (link opens in a new window)

Acumen Fund Initiative Will Develop ’Entrepreneurial Bench’ in Fight against Global Poverty

Inaugural Fellows Class Selected From Global Applicant Pool Will Bring Private Sector Solutions to Developing World NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 24, 2006--Acumen Fund, a leading innovator in the creation of sustainable, scalable solutions addressing poverty in the developing world, announced the inaugural class of Acumen Fund Fellow...

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Yahoo! Business Wire (link opens in a new window)

Bangladesh’s banking sector has been going through massive development due to favourable policy of the government. They already have a significant number of private sector banks and these banks now offer short to long term packages for their respective clients. For their successful performance, not necessarily only the businessmen but also housewives and potential entrepreneurs nowadays have access to banking services. There are many women who have got success in small bu...

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Financial Express (Bangladesh) (link opens in a new window)

Kenya’s small and medium-sized businesses can tap into a Sh1.7 billion regional fund launched by a group of local and international companies.It will be made available in loans and business development assistance through managerial training.Dubbed ’Aspire Kenya’, the initiative has been jointly established by GroFin, an African specialist business developer and financier, and Shell Foundation. Small Ugandan and Tanzanian firms will also benefit. GroFin will co-ordinate ...

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BiD Network (link opens in a new window)

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have played an important role in the development of China’

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have played an important role in the development of China’s economy. As of the end of 2004, SMEs accounted for 58.5 percent of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product), 66 percent of patent rights and 74 percent of technology innovation, according to Li Jun, vice-president of the Export-Import Bank of China. They developed 82 percent of the country’s new products and made up 68.3 and 69 percent of total exports and imports respectively.

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CRIEnglish.com (link opens in a new window)