NextBillion - A WDI Publication

World Bank Boosts Lending to Poor

The World Bank said it had expanded by about 18 per cent its capacity to give grants and loans to the world’s poorest countries over the next three years. The $49.3bn funding package for the International Development Association, the bank’s grant and soft-loan arm, will increase the bank’s support to low-income countries despite worldwide pressure on aid budgets as the result of shaky government finan...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Unemployed African Youth to Benefit from UN-backed Finance Programme

Some 200,000 low-income youth in sub-Saharan Africa will benefit from a United Nations-backed initiative announced today to increase access for them to financial services in a region where youth unemployment rates are two to three times that of adults. YouthStart, co-sponsored by UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the MasterCard Foundation, which has made a four-year, $12 million contribution, is a competition-based programme that will identify and support up to 12 financial instit...

Source

UN News Centre (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Still No Access to Product and Services at BOP: Tata

AHMEDABAD: Seeking to address the issue of challenges to inclusive growth in emerging economies, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata today said that at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) people are still not having access to product and services, as they are still slightly beyond their reach. "India is a country normally referred to the consuming markets of 253 million people. And when we analyse that market we see with the prosperity that India is enjoying today there is an upward m...

Source

The Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

In Haiti, Good Intentions Have Unexpected and Unfortunate Results

Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti - The wood-frame Carousel grammar school survived the earthquake that destroyed much of this city in January. Beatrice Moise had taught there for five years and hoped she would continue when schools reopened in spring. But in February she found out that the director had rented ...

Source

The Los Angeles Times (link opens in a new window)

Jane Goodall Saves Chimpanzees Using Microcredit

Jane Goodall came to Gombe National Park to study chimpanzees 50 years ago. She became one of the world’s best known primate researchers. In the early 1990s, she became shocked by the ecological destruction around the park and left the jungle to become an activist. Nowadays she’s saving the primates using microcredit. The 76-year-old chimpanzee expert travels the world to talk about her conservation work. She tells stories about how local people are involved in conserving the...

Source

Radio Netherlands Worldwide (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

ADB?s $250 Million Risk Programme to Expand Microfinance to Poor

By Sajid Chaudhry ISLAMABAD: The Board of directors of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) has approved a Microfinance Risk Participation Programme, marking ADB’s first large scale private sector microfinance initiative. An ADB statement issued here on Monday said the programme will allow ADB to partner with financial institutions that actively lend to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in ADB’s developing member countries, and to share the defaul...

Source

Daily Times (Pakistan) (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Microfinance Pioneer Yunus Criticises Indian Lenders

DHAKA - Bangladeshi microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus on Sunday attacked companies for "misusing and abusing" his original concept of helping poor people via small loans, after a backlash against profit-making lenders. Yunus admitted the reputation of micro-credit had been tarnished due to Indian commercial companies that charge high interest rates and use allegedly heavy-handed tactics to collect repayments. India’s biggest lender to the poor, SKS Microfinance, has been in ...

Source

Google News (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

The Technology to Unlock the Future of Villages

In 20 years of working as a physician in Karnataka’s Hassan district, Kumaraswamy N E often found himself irked by the blurred readings on the electrocardiography (ECG) machine. Often enough, it just broke down, which meant that the high cost of measuring heart activity had to be passed on to the patient...

Source

The Times of India (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia