NextBillion - A WDI Publication

India-China Emerge Strong Business Partners Of Africa: Study

Chinese and Indian firms are increasingly doing business in sub-Saharan Africa, and their interest in the continent extends well beyond a hunt for natural resources, Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Sunday quoting the study titled Africa’s Silk Road: China and India’s new Economic Frontier as saying. These two emerging economic giants of Asia are at the centre of the explosion of African-Asian trade and investment, a striking hallmark of the new trend in...

Source

Bernama.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Low-cost schools in poor nations seek investors

My recent research has shown that private schools for the poor are superior to government schools ? teachers were much more likely to be teaching when we called unannounced in their classrooms. Private schools were, in general, better equipped with drinking water and toilets. Testing about 24,000 children we found academic achievement was much higher in private than government schools. All of this was accomplished for a fraction of the per-pupil teacher cost. William Easterly dedicates his recen...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

IDB calls for tripling microcredit in LatAm – Regional

Microfinance institutions in Latin America currently only serve about 8% of estimated demand, IDB president Luis Alberto Moreno said at the 9th Microenterprise Forum in Quito, Ecuador. We all know we still have a long way to go to democratize financial services, he said, according to an IDB statement. In reality, most people [in the region] do not have access to formal financial services. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has called on the region’...

Source

Business News Americas (link opens in a new window)

Wolfowitz links corruption to poverty

We feel very strongly that when there is systemic corruption in a country, to great levels, then the resources do not reach the poor, said Huguette Labelle, president of Transparency International, a private corruption watchdog. There are so many countries that should be very rich today because of their natural resources, but they’re not, Labelle told delegates attending the World Bank meetings. Governments, companies and financial institutions must unite...

Source

Yahoo! News (link opens in a new window)

World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next Generation

The report will focus on?crucial capabilities and transitions in a young person’s life: learning for life and work, staying healthy, working, forming families, and exercising citizenship. For each, there are opportunities and risks; for all, policies and institutions matter.? More ab...

Source

The World Bank (link opens in a new window)

Linux v. Microsoft: Third World Showdown

So, in the brewing battle of Windows vs. Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth’s stated belief that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local languages and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customize and alter their software in whatever way they see fit. If you think that’s all standard Linux/Open Source talk, you’re right. The difference is that instead of trying to convert...

Source

Yahoo! Finance (link opens in a new window)

Study: Remittance recipients more willing to invest in LatAm – Regional

A growing number of remittance recipients in Latin America and the Caribbean are willing to invest in the region, the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) said in a study. The main goals of these migrants are to own a home or establish their own businesses in their countries of origin, but only a third of them have made such investments, mostly in real estate. Five years ago, 95% of the migrants polled said they had no investments in their hom...

Source

Business News Americas (link opens in a new window)

Super-rich in move to ease African poverty

US economist Jeffrey Sachs has been pursuing the strategy since 2004 through his non-profit Millennium Promise group. It aims to tackle myriad problems of poverty all at once by providing villagers with relatively inexpensive technologies and approaches, including mosquito nets to prevent malaria and stoves with chimneys to reduce deadly indoor air pollution. FINANCIER and philanthropist George Soros has offered $US50 million ($A66 million) to support a vast social experiment that aims to help v...

Source

The Age (link opens in a new window)