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

GFUSA Tsunami Study Recommends Microfinance to Accelerate Recovery

A targeted investment in microfinance services could help more than 100,000 people in four tsunami-affected countries to build, rebuild or resume family-sustaining businesses such as fishing, farming and merchant shops, according to a new study released by Grameen Foundation USA (GFUSA). The groundbreaking study, Recovery from Tsunami Disaster: Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development through Mic...

Source

Grameen Foundation USA

Helping the poor by selling them stuff; poverty alleviation through private enterprise, by Rhett But

This year the United Nations announced a major push to deliver unprecedented amounts of aid to the world’s poorest countries. U2’s Bono has appealed to fans at rock concerts to support the One Campaign, which aims to persuade the U.S. government to spend an additional one percent of its budget to assist Africa and other struggling regions, while Tony Blair has called for a massive charitable package for Africa. After last year’s devastating tsunami, relief pledges quick...

Source

Mongabay.com

With Loans, Poor South Asian Women Turn Entrepreneurial, byt Cris Prystay

Every morning, Sarjoni Nandyala puts a few bars of Unilever PLC’s Lifebuoy soap and sachets of Clinic shampoo in a canvas bag and sets off to sell them to her neighbors in this dusty farming village in southeastern India. For Mrs. Nandyala, who took out a $200 loan from a state-run microcredit agency to start her business, the work is challenging and the returns modest -- $16 a month is her average profit. But Hindustan Lever Ltd., Unilever’s Indian subsi...

Source

The Wall Street Journal

Region

South Asia

Waste Not, Want Not as Villagers Pioneer Use of Biogas in Cambodia, by Ker Munthit

Nget Loun’s rickety old thatched house is typical of Cambodia’s impoverished countryside, but it holds a surprise inside: a state of the art, environmental-friendly gas stove. Off the grid as far as most utilities are concerned, her household and 29 others in this village get a steady supply of clean energy from human and animal waste, using a device that not only makes cooking less of a chore, but also keeps their gardens flourishing and helps save the forests.

Source

Associated Press

Categories

Energy

Tags

waste

Social Entrepreneurs to Play Bigger Role in China

BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhuanet) -- A country confronted with such problems as wealth polarization, insufficient resources for education in rural areas, China has much room in its civil society for social entrepreneurs to play a bigger role, said Dorit Lehrack, senior consultant with the China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO).

Source

Xinhua News (link opens in a new window)

GT Moves to Revolutionarise Rural Communication, by Ama Achiaa Amankwah

A model communication centre developed for rural and peri-urban communities, under an Information Communication Technology, (ICT) project dubbed eCARE, has been envisaged to revolutionarise communication in the rural areas. eCARE is an acronym for e-commerce and renewable energy. The project seeks to increase access to ICT powered by renewable energy in rural and peri-urban areas of Ghana. eCARE has been a community phone project by Ghana Telecom since February 2005. ...

Source

Public Agenda (Accra)

M-Banking Finds Success in Africa, by Steve Wallage

In countries and communities where banks and credit card companies have far less sway than in the Western world, mobile banking suddenly seems much more attractive. M-banking always seems like such an obvious evolution of the mobile phone. Talk of the electronic wallet and cashless society has been with us for years now, and what better tool to enable it than the ubiquitous mobile? If only the reality was as easy. There are at least four major stakeholders in m-banking: th...

Source

TheFeature

Article 13’s report, ?Climate Change and Poverty: A Business Opportunity??

Article 13, the leading specialists on governance, business responsibility and sustainable development, have published the report, ?Climate Change and Poverty: A Business Opportunity?? as a contribution to the ongoing debate about how business can contribute ? beyond pure philanthropy ? to addressing these two problems. The report contains a wealth of original material: a survey of FTSE-500 chief executives on their current approaches and expectations of future developments; interviews ...

Source

Article 13