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

JB: This is Earth & Sky, on the need for fresh water and the use of simple technologies in the developing world DB: They can make a huge difference for some of the billion-plus people on Earth today who live in poverty so extreme that they are at risk of dying every day. Consider the Sahel region of Africa. It’s been in drought conditions for decades. When rains do come, reservoirs and wells fill up. But, in some places, the water has to be carried to farmer’s fields by h...

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Earth & Sky Radio Series (link opens in a new window)

Private-Public partnership model to improve the livelihoods of the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)

CII - ICRISAT & Coca-Cola Foundation Collaboration for Backward Areas Development through Strategic Intervention in Watershed Development The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Coca-Cola Foundation will collaborate for sustainable and equitable management of Rural Water Resources Infrastructure and other Natural Resources Management (NRM) through watershed+ interventions in Dungarpur district...

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Moneycontrol.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Winners to be announced May 11

After months of preparation by participants in the inaugural Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Competition, the finalists have officially been selected. On March 30th, fourteen semi-finalists and their teams were joined by members of the St. Louis community at a speaker event held at Washington University. Serving as keynote speaker for this event was Theresa Wilson, founder of The Blessing Basket Project, a sustainable non-profit operating in 5 countries around the world which...

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Washington University in St. Louis (link opens in a new window)

Chasing Capital

Two local microfinance nonprofits are recruiting private investors to join them in their fight against global poverty. Redmond-based Unitus Inc. recently completed a $9 million initial close on a $20 million private equity fund meant to buy stock in its microfinance partners. The new money will provide additional resources for the nonprofit’s eight microfinance partners, which are located abroad and backed by Unitus-facilitated grants and loans. Those partners currently provide s...

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MSNBC (link opens in a new window)

Sales effort gives India’s rural poor an opportunity

CHOLLERU, India ? With its open sewers and mud-walled homes, this impoverished farming village of 2,200 in southern India did not look like fertile territory for an entrepreneur. But Srilatha Kadem was undeterred. Oblivious to the midday heat, she marched briskly along the unpaved streets, her cloth bag filled with soaps and shampoos and her heart with vaulting ambition. She stopped at a tile-roofed house, where a gray-haired woman in a green sari lounged in the shade of the small vera...

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The Seattle Times (link opens in a new window)

Pilot scheme benefits migrant workers

Li Caiyun and her husband do not need to worry about expensive hospital bills now their company has joined a local government medical insurance pilot scheme, specially designed for migrant workers. It takes them only 10 minutes to walk to their local healthcare centre, where they spend as little as 20 yuan (US$2.5) for medicines for ailments such as colds and fevers, said the couple from east China’s Anhui Province. Before the scheme, they h...

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China Gateway (link opens in a new window)

The case for social investment

Noel Wandera A Group of organisations, including the Nairobi Stock Exchange, a number of stockbrokers and fund managers, individuals, some local NGOs, corporations, and a UK-based international NGO have launched an initiative to promote social investment in Kenya. Operating under the umbrella of Kenya Social Investment Forum (KSIF), the group aims at promoting financial transactions intended to achieve social objectives and deliver financial returns to investors. KSIF has ...

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The Standard (link opens in a new window)

The NMB seeks to finance projects for low-income individuals.

The Middle East’s first national microfinance bank opened earlier this week amid mixed reactions from local NGOs. The National Micro-Finance Bank (NMB), launched by the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organisations on Monday, has been hailed as the first of its kind in the region. The project’s other stakeholders include the King Abdullah II Fund for Development and members of the private sector. The NMB seeks to finance projects for low-income i...

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Reuters Foundation AlertNet (link opens in a new window)