NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Renewed Assault on Malaria

Bank Launches Global Strategy & Booster Program The World Bank is substantially boosting its support to combat malaria, a dangerous disease which kills more than 3000 people a day in Sub-Saharan Africa. The move is in recognition that progress on combating malaria has been too slow and uneven ? with over 500 million new cases of malaria each year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank has developed a new global strategy ? released today to mark Africa Malaria Da...

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The World Bank

Inaugural Seed Awards Honor Sustainable Development Entrepreneurs

The first biennial Seed Initiative awards to Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development (Seed) were made in New York on Wednesday during the 13th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. The new sustainable development awards are the outcome of an international competition to find the most promising new locally-driven, entrepreneurial partnerships. The Initiative is a partnership between IUCN-The World Conservation Union, the United Nations Environment Program...

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Environment News Service

Letter From India: 100 million dialing out: That leaves 900 million, by Amelia Gentleman

There was no mistaking the triumphalism in the Indian government’s announcement last week that the country now had 100 million phone connections. The minister responsible said he was proud and telecommunications analysts hailed it as a historic day for India. To those uninitiated in the complexities of the Indian telephone industry, the jubilation was somewhat bewildering. Of course, 100 million is an awful lot of telephones, but in a country with a population o...

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International Herald Tribune

The South Asian Consumer Market: How Big is the Potential?, by Martha Lagace

With a population in the billions and with wildly diverse income levels, South Asia poses unique challenges to marketers, to say the least. But smart marketers are figuring out how to adapt by applying basic principles of their trade to the unique characteristics of the region. As one said recently at Harvard Business School, if you’re struggling to sell soap, then maybe improving the water infrastructure in local villages is the most important first step. At the panel discussion ...

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HBS Working Knowledge

UN intellectual rights protector places more developing country issues on agenda

Saying it has made a major shift in priorities and direction since its last meeting two years ago, a committee on development in the United Nations agency on intellectual property rights says developing countries must devise policies and strategies that turn their traditional knowledge, healing arts and culture into national assets. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) says it is holding meetings this month and next to respond to a decision by its General Assembly...

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UN News Centre

Developing world needs knowledge more than hardware, speakers say, by K. Oanh Ha

Is the digital divide dead? Yes, concluded speakers at a Santa Clara University symposium Thursday where participants agreed that throwing computers at the developing world isn’t the answer to global inequity. What’s really needed is a bridge to close the knowledge divide, according to the speakers. The problem comes down to much more than technology,’’ said Geoffrey Bowker, executive director of the university’s Center for Science, Technology and Society, which ...

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The Mercury News

As New Vietnam Forges Ahead, Entrepreneurs Take Limelight

The big change is in the attitude to capitalism. In the past five years, an estimated 140,000 private businesses in Vietnam have been registered. Private companies account for one-fifth of GDP, and are virtually the only job-creators in a country where 1 million young people join the work force each year. Drawn to Vietnam a decade ago, Nike, the country’s single largest private employer with some 130,000 workers, produces some VND11 trillion worth of footwear, making Vietnam the larges...

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Dow Jones Newswire

IFC and Banque MISR Expand Services to Egyptian Micro and Small Enterprises

The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, has signed an advisory services agreement with Banque Misr to extend the development of its micro and small enterprises operations to the bank?s branches in underserved areas of Egypt. The advisory services will help Banque Misr provide micro and small enterprises with investment and working capital financing. Banque MISR will extend loans to entrepreneurs who are unable to expand their businesses becaus...