NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Fabulous fabrications

A way to help inventors in poor countries realise their ideas The World Bank and the other usual sources of finance for international development say they appreciate fab lab’s potential, but consider the project far too speculative. They prefer investing in proven technologies rather than in the process of technology development. Despite this, the labs may be able to spread without support from traditional aid agencies because they may be able to become economically sel...

Source

Economist

Afghan entrepreneurs find profit in technology, by Michael Coren

So far, the spread of technology has depended on trade. Commercial routes between cities are feeding the expansion of mobile phone access while whetting the population’s appetite for instant communication. It’s allowing the very obvious entrepreneurial sprit of Afghans to come out and be expressed, said the State Department official. (Telecommunications) has been a tremendous multiplier for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Roshan, the largest mobile ph...

Source

CNN

Help Migrants Wire Home Hope

African states could work closely with the private sector to modernise their weak financial service infrastructure, especially banking sector technology. This is crucial not only to improving access to formal banking channels in sending and receiving countries, but also to bringing a significant portion of remittance receipts into the financial system. State actions against money laundering and against funds suspected of financing terrorism have had a marked effect on remittances funnelled throu...

Source

Business Day (Johannesburg)

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migrants

Bio-fuel to be grown on wasteland

The [Agri-Science Park] is a hub of public-private partnerships to enhance the development and commercialisation of science-generated technologies and knowledge through market mechanisms.? The goal of the ASP is to help achieve ICRISAT?s mandate to develop agriculture in the semi-arid tropics. The ultimate objective is to reduce poverty and hunger, and also to protect environment.? The ASP consists of an Agri-Biotech Park (ABP), an Agri-Business Incubator (ABI), Private Sector Hybrid...

Source

Business Standard

Categories

Environment

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waste

Can Tourism Help South Africa’s Poor? by Leon Marshall

Though far outranked by the manufacturing sector as a foreign-currency earner, tourism is a focal point of the country’s strategy to reduce its high unemployment rates. Economists estimate that one job is created for every ten foreign tourists who visit South Africa. Experts say tourism can be used as a development tool to bring the country’s poor into the economic mainstream. Story found he...

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National Geographic News

CFTRI to promote units in Africa

Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) has signed an MoU with Mysore-based Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) to promote small-scale food processing projects in African and Latin American countries.? According to T C Venkat Subramanian, CMD of Exim Bank, the technologies developed by CFTRI are most appropriate, adaptable and affordable for developing countries.? For overseas application of food technologies, CFTRI is bringing low cost long shelf life technologies....

Source

Business Standard

New Vaccine Said to Offer Hope Against Bacterium, by Donald G. McNeil Jr.

A new vaccine tested in West Africa could save the lives of thousands of poor rural children who die each year from bacterial infections, a team of scientists reported yesterday. The vaccine is a strengthened version of Prevnar, which has been given widely to American infants since 2000 and prevents rare but serious infections with the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterium. In the third world, the same germ is a major killer, and the new vaccine, tested in Gambia, exceeded our expe...

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The New York Times

China Flexes Economic Muscle Throughout Burgeoning Africa, by Karby Leggett

In Africa, as in many other parts of the developing world, China is redrawing geopolitical alliances in ways that help propel China’s rise as a global superpower. China is courting other countries to support its plan to reassert political authority over Taiwan and seeking a counterweight against U.S. power in global bodies such as the United Nations. It’s also thinking long-term, cultivating desperately poor nations to serve as markets for its products decades down the road. ...

Source

The Wall Street Journal