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

Mapping Reveals Earth’s Best Sites for Wind, Solar Power

Thousands of megawatts of new renewable energy potential in Africa, Asia, South and Central America have been discovered through the multi-million dollar project, called the Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA). First results from the project were released today at an international meeting of scientists and policymakers organized by UNEP, which is coordinating the renewable resource assessment on behalf of more than 25 insti...

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Environment News Service

Alternative Source of Investment in Africa: Can Ghana Benefit? by Charles Antwi

It is reported that a New York-based private investment banking firm is putting together a $1 billion hedge fund -yes, b as in billion. The fund intends to invest in projects in selected African countries. The banking firm, which has Ghanaian involvement, has developed a relationship with a major European bank to manage the hedge fund’s relationships with its clients in Africa. The firm’s use of sophisticated finance and investment tools-derivatives, arbitrage, leverage...

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Ghanaian Chronicle

Eradicating Poverty through Profit

World Resources Institute conference explores making business work for the poor, by Phil Storey Is there really a ?fortune at the bottom of the pyramid,? just waiting for corporations to claim it and empower the poor? Over two-and-a-half days in December, more than 1,000 people from five continents gathered at the Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco to explore this question. The occasion was a conference organized by the World Resources Institute, called ?Er...

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Green@Work Magazine (link opens in a new window)

Global Experts Rank Top 10 Nanotechnology Applications to Aid Poor

According to a new study by the Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health (CPGGH) at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics (JCB), a leading international medical ethics think-tank, several nanotechnology applications will help people in developing countries tackle their most urgent problems - extreme poverty and hunger, child mortality, environmental degradation and diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. The study is the...

Launch of Simu 4 U Takes Rural Telecom to New Level, by Elias Biryabaremas & Rosebell Kagumire

As the competition in the telecommunications sector gets tougher, the public payphone service, whose reform has been somewhat slow, has got new dynamism with the launching of Simu 4 U by Uganda Telecom Ltd. Particularly designed for low-income sections of the population, the service is notably expected to have a dramatic impact in rural areas where access to telephone has long been a dream luxury to many on account of cost and distance. The company’s Managing Director, Mr Aimabl...

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The Monitor (Kampala)

Horticulture Gets Website, by Dorothy Nakaweesi

Horticultural exporters in Uganda will have no little hustle in making business transactions because they now have a website; horticultureuganda.com . The website was launched on April 8 by the Minister of State for Trade, Mr Nathan Igeme Nabeta at Fairway Hotel. E-commerce is the most efficient way to communicate with the rest of the world to expand your services. I urge you to make use of the website those companies ...

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The Monitor (Kampala)

Globalisation with a third-world face

Developing countries are attracting increasing amounts of foreign direct investment?from each other Third-world multinationals often do rather better in poor countries than their first-world rivals. As Messrs Aykut and Ratha note, their pockets are not as deep, but their overheads are lower. Their technology may be less advanced, but better suited to the countries in which they invest. They are often closer to the host country, both geographically and culturally, and they tend to be ...

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The Economist

East Asia Can’t Get Goods To Market

An Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Japan Bank for International Cooperation report, Connecting East Asia: A New Framework for Infrastructure, indicates that the public sector will be the main provider of infrastructure, while the role of the private sector will remain limited in the short to medium term. East Asia is in danger of losing the logistical advantages that have driven its dynamic growth in recent decades, as the region’s infrastructure networks, especially...

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Oxford Analytica