NextBillion - A WDI Publication

City Poor Can’t Afford Electricity

A FEASIBILITY study has found that the majority of around 14 000 households in Windhoek’s informal settlements will not be able to pay for either electricity connections or consumption if this were to be provided to them. The study commissioned by the City in 46 informal settlements found that the residents wanted a high level of electrical infrastructure, which was beyond their means to pay for. The analysis of the households’ income revealed that most households...

Source

The Namibian (Windhoek), Lindsay Dentlinger (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

IFC to Help Kyrgyz Not-for-Profit Group Reach More Microentrepreneurs

The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, today signed an agreement to provide a $2.2 million financing package to Micro Credit Agency Bai Tushum Financial Foundation, one of Kyrgyzstan?s leading micro lending institutions. Through the package, IFC will support the transformation of Bai Tushum from its present not-for-profit status to a more sustainable, commercially-oriented, deposit-taking financial institution that can serve as a...

Source

ifc.org (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Empowering the poor by improving governance of social service delivery

World Bank Delivery of essential social service delivery continues to be strengthened with the adoption of programmatic approaches in health and education, sustained emphasis to the sector in the budget, and continued non-government organisation (NGO)-government partnerships that have proved effective in the past. There is a common understanding that the next generation of reforms would need to focus on strengthening the institutional framework for service delivery along with...

Source

The Financial Express (link opens in a new window)

Research Body Develops Modern Solar Fruit Dryer

A new highly effective solar dryer for reducing the massive post-harvest losses of fresh produce has been adopted by farmers in Wakiso district. The dryer has been developed by Uganda Industrial Research Organisation with support from the German Technical Cooperation and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development. Farmers in Wakiso are optimistic that their fruit production will increase after several years of making losses. Uganda grows a variety of crops ...

Source

New Vision (Kampala), Ronald Kalyango (link opens in a new window)

Experimental Entrepreneurship: Removing the ’Tin Cup Dependencies’

...the Botswana project illustrates a new concept they have developed in a study called Societal Wealth Creation via Experimental Entrepreneurship. The idea is to promote philanthropy which supports business entrepreneurship under a for-profit model that attacks social problems and creates new societal wealth. Based on four experimental entrepreneurial philanthropy programs that are already in progress, including the one in Botswana, the Snider Center hopes to attract phi...

Source

Knowledge @ Wharton (link opens in a new window)

It’s a Very Small World

Thirty-six people from all parts of the world, including Yoel Sharon, head of Israel’s Etgarim (?Challenge?), met at Davos under the auspices of the Schwab Foundation, to discuss social projects that may change the world, just a little. They all have the same aim: to bring about change through local activity. Zafar and the Kashf Foundation manage to contribute financing to large numbers of women, including loans and savings management. But for these services, the women would...

Source

Globes Online (link opens in a new window)

Hype And Hope: the Worrisome State of the Microcredit Movement

Is credit a human right? If these poor people could get small loans at manageable rates, they could break out of the cycle of poverty, or so the theory goes. John Kenneth Galbraith spoke to the point 30 years ago. ’The function of credit in a simple society is, in fact, remarkably egalitarian. It allows the man with energy and no money to participate in the economy more or less on a par with the man who has capital of his own. And the more casual the condition under which credit...

Source

The Public Agenda (Accra) (link opens in a new window)

Sustainable Farm Practices Improve Third World Food Production

Crop yields on farms in developing countries that used sustainable agriculture rose nearly 80 percent in four years, according to a study scheduled for publication in the Feb. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology. The study, the largest of its kind to date -- 286 farm projects in 57 countries -- concludes that sustainable agriculture protects the environment in these countries while substantially improving the lives of farmers who adopt the res...

Source

Science Daily (link opens in a new window)