NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Development analyst Dr Sudhirendar Sharma worked at the World Bank before embarking on development consultancy and independent research. During the last five years or so, he helped set up hundreds of self-help groups in villages. However, realising that the hidden agenda might be different, he started researching the flip side of micro-credit. At the Ecological Foundation, the Delhi-based think-tank, Dr Sharma and his colleagues critique development through research and advocacy.

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OneWorld South Asia (link opens in a new window)

How strategy guru C.K. Prahalad is changing the way CEOs think

Take a cab ride through Bombay, and these are the scenes that will likely strike you first: raggedly dressed homeless families sprawled on blankets amid shacks. Traffic hopelessly clogged with every manner of soot-belching vehicle and wooden cart. Gaunt hawkers and beggars tapping on your window at red lights. For foreign visitors, such jarring images of pove...

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Business Week Online (link opens in a new window)

Wristwatch fights malaria

A South African inventor has developed an antimalaria wristwatch that helps combat one of Africa’s biggest killers by monitoring the blood of those who wear it and sounding an alarm when the parasite is detected. Gervan Lubbe said his malaria monitor wristwatch, due to launch next month, could save lives and keep millions out of hospital by heading off the disease before patients even feel ill. It picks up the parasite and destroys it so early that th...

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Reuters (link opens in a new window)

Environment Friendly Solar Lanterns for Rural Lighting

IN a country where only 9% of the total population have access to electricity, kerosene lamps (tadooba) and wax candles serve as the major providers of light in many households. These, however, bear far-reaching health and environmental consequences, especially in rural areas. But with the recently established project to provide solar lanterns to different parts of Uganda, this risky practice will perhaps be minimised. The project is spearheaded by Makerere University Cen...

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New Vision (Kampala), Stephen Ssenkaaba (link opens in a new window)

Malawi: Villages Get Cracking to Become MDG Achievers

The project in Malawi has set up a committee of community members for every MDG in each village. Each committee then identifies the needs of the village, be it more classrooms or teachers in the education sector or certain medicines. The most unique feature of our project is community participation and ownership because, ultimately, they own and run the project, said Kulemeka. The UN Millennium Village Project is giving 11 Malawian hamlets the chance to break free f...

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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (link opens in a new window)

Alternative Energy Sources Could Hold the Key to Rural Electrification Project

UGANDA has one of the lowest per capita electricity consumption in the world despite having abundant renewable energy sources in the countryside. Only about 7 percent of Ugandans have access to electricity and only 3 percent of the rural population access electric power. That means only 10 percent of Ugandans access electricity leaving the rest to use other means including gas, paraffin and wood. Inspite of availability of numerous renewable energy sources in t...

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The Monitor (Kampala), Alfred Tumushabe (link opens in a new window)

Unselfish Technologists

Six social entrepreneurs bear witness to the fact that profit is not the only driver of innovation. In writing about the technology business, Red Herring urges its reporters to ?follow the money,? and track the investors, sellers, and buyers of products and services. While the confluence of innovation and financing has been the key ingredient in creating centers of technology like Silicon Valley, money is not the only reason that people invest years and thousands of dollars to create...

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Red Herring (link opens in a new window)

Rural credit: Local lenders still rule the roost

Surinder Sud Despite a perceptible increase in the flow of rural credit from institutional sources, the share of the informal sector, notably traditional moneylenders and traders, in farmers’ outstanding debts remain as high as 43.3 per cent at the all-India level. This share is higher than the national average in several agriculturally progressive states, including Punjab, Andhra P...

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rediff.com (link opens in a new window)