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Press release: New Gender Lens Investing Tool Helps Drive Capital to Mutual Funds Supporting Gender Equality
Gender Equality Funds screens the specific holdings of about 5,000 of the most commonly-held U.S. mutual funds—including financial giants like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street—against a database detailing individual company performance on 12 key gender equality performance indicators. These 12 indicators measure policies that demonstrate a commitment to gender diversity and gender balance in the overall leadership, management, and workforce of companies, combining into an overall gender equality portfolio score for each mutual fund.
- Categories
- Investing
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Africa’s secret weapon for economic growth and global development
Evidence shows that family planning is essential to lower maternal and infant mortality. Although both have decreased in the past decades, still today over 300,000 women and girls die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications, including unsafe abortions.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Microsoft connection: Capria fund, backed by Bill Gates, gets $20M from Paul Allen’s Vulcan
Allen’s investment arm Vulcan Capital committed $20 million to a fund being raised by Capria that will be used to back fund managers in “emerging markets.” Capria is raising $100 million for this fund and has selected the first couple firms it will invest in.
- Categories
- Investing
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ENGIE acquires controlling stake in Simpa Energy India
Simpa Energy India is the leading rural rooftop solar provider in India, selling solar home systems (SHS) to households and small businesses in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia
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Virtusa launches API Exchange for financial inclusion
The platform will include an online global FinTech marketplace and sandbox platform. APIX will accelerate financial services innovation and inclusion by enabling collaboration between financial institutions and FinTech innovators.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Press release: Citi and Banco Guayaquil Sign $20 Million Loan Agreement Benefiting Microfinance in Ecuador
With over 520,000 previously-unbanked clients that now have “Amiga Accounts” and a $70m loan book to finance microenterprises, Banco Guayaquil’s “Banco del Barrio” is one of the pioneering and most comprehensive inclusive finance programs in Latin America, significantly expanding access to financial services in Ecuador by leveraging a network of more than 4,400 non-bank customer touchpoints across the country.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
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Billion-dollar tech startups hold promise for China’s economy
Chinese tech companies listed in China and Hong Kong have seen their shares plunge this year, amid a market shakeout. But while the Shanghai Composite Index is down about 20% since the beginning of 2018, analysts say that there is still appetite for good startups.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Deep Dive: Two of America’s Wealthiest Philanthropists Are Teaming Up to Protect the Oceans
They’re calling it the Bloomberg-OceanX initiative, and it will coordinate activities, to some extent, between Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Vibrant Oceans Initiative, and Ray and his son Mark Dalio’s OceanX, an exploration and media outfit.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
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