NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Egypt Plans Stimulus to Revive ?Sudden Stop? Economy

Ashraf Abdel-Wanis had plenty of reasons to join tens of thousands of fellow Egyptians in their successful push to oust President Hosni Mubarak. At 39, he last worked five years ago in a sugar factory and now gets by mainly on his wife’s $50 monthly salary and his mother’s pension. "The Egyptian family’s nutrition consists of beans, lentils and beans," he said in an interview in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the plaza at the heart of almost three weeks of protests. "If they’...

Source

Bloomberg (link opens in a new window)

Region

North Africa & Near East

Can a PepsiCo-Powered Crowd of Scientists Rescue Moms, Infants?

Last November, Scientists Without Borders underwent a makeover from a social networking site for scientists to an open innovation platform that crowdsources solutions to scientific problems. The first major challenge, sweetened by $10,000 in PepsiCo-funded prize money, is reducing infant mortality in the developing world through better nutrition. Infant mortality in many developing countries is high (3.6 mi...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

A Mobile Banking Powerhouse Born From Bus Fare Theft

M-PESA , one of the world’s most rapidly expanding mobile banking systems, is transforming the banking sector in Africa. And it started, in part, when a thief stole bus fare from a woman who was participating in the M-PESA pilot. Until then, M-PESA was a microfinance initiative, but the victim’s husband used the mobile pay service to transfer fund...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

’Best Chance’ to End Polio – Bill Gates Promotes Vaccines and Food Programs to Attack Poverty

Washington, DC - The likelihood that few African countries will meet any of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, aimed at reducing severe poverty by 2015, has prompted a spate of studies, books and debates that examine development assistance. Many argue that aid, in general, has done more harm than good. Since leaving an operational role at Microsoft in 2008, Bill Gates has devoted full time to the premise that international assistance, sp...

Source

allAfrica.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

What Are Social-Impact Bonds?

By DAVID LEONHARDT My column this week describes a new strategy for improving the performance of government programs. In short, private investors - typically foundations - pay the costs of a new program in its early years, and the government later repays the investors,...

Source

The New York Times (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Finance

Tags

impact bonds

Why a New Multidonor Trust Fund in Liberia Works

Many countries are struggling to meet the Millennium Development Goals because their governments are unwilling or unable to fulfill core functions. Sudan and Afghanistan are examples of fragile states that are receiving billions in foreign aid every year but are unlikely to reach the MDGs. Among the classic repertoire of approaches to providing development assistance, few funding instruments can effectively channel resources through governments of fragile states and help them to become ...

Source

DevEx (link opens in a new window)

Africa’s Innovation Generation: Dynamos and Mobile Wiz Kids

Leapfrogging PCs, Africa’s burgeoning generation of mobile tech-savvy entrepreneurs is bursting with ideas and practical inventions, from African apps for smart phones to software solutions that address uniquely local challenges. In this installment of Mobile Message, Kenya-based Erik Hersman, a co-founder of Ushahidi , a free and open source platform for crowdsourcing information and visualizing data, writes about ...

Source

National Geographic (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Seeking America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship has always been about solving problems. What distinguishes social entrepreneurs is how much their solutions improve people’s lives. They’re building companies to lift people out of poverty, improve global health, extend human rights, and protect the environment. They’re business people, too, and they take profits as seriously they take their missions. Social enterprises aren’t charities-they sustain themselves and grow because their customers pay for the value...

Source

Businessweek (link opens in a new window)