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Loan Ranger
On a hot summer day in Manaus, Brazil, Diana Taylor, the former banking superintendent of New York and longtime companion of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, was strolling through a slum. A city of about two million in the middle of the Amazon, Manaus is where the Boston-based microfinance group Acción International started an ambitious lending operation in February, and Taylor, who is chairwoman of the group’s board, had flown down with a delegation...
- Region
- Latin America
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Grameen Foundation and USAID Providing $3 Million for Peruvian Microfinance Institutions
Grameen Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) today announced that they are jointly providing a $1.5 million credit guarantee to the Peruvian savings and credit cooperative Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito (ABACO) to support approximately $3 million for local currency financing to two socially-focused Peruvian microfinance institutions (MFIs). Peru has an established microfinance sector, with mature institutions having relatively easy access to internationa...
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- Latin America
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In Pockets of Booming Brazil, a Mint Idea Gains Currency
SILVA JARDIM, Brazil-After school and on weekends, Carlos Leandro Peixoto de Abril sells ice cream made by his grandmother from a stoop alongside the family’s cinder-block home. Instead of Brazilian reais, though, the 11-year-old prefers payment in capivaris-a local currency emblazoned with the face of a giant rodent. Bills in hand, Carlos then heads to a local grocer and buys ingredients, at a special discount, for another batch of grandma’s goods. The capivari circulates...
- Region
- Latin America
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A Lesson in Social Entrepreneurship: Fundacion Paraguaya
Recently, I interviewed Martin Burt, founder and CEO of Fundación Paraguaya , an NGO devoted to the promotion of entrepreneurship among the world’s poor. A pioneer in microfinances and youth financial literacy in Paraguay, Burt developed one of the world’s first financially self-sufficient agricultural schools for the rural poor - creating a radical new model for education. In ad...
- Region
- Latin America
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Omidyar Network and IGNIA Lead $13.75 Million Series B Round in Finestrella
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Omidyar Network and IGNIA announced today they are leading a $13.75 million Series B round of financing in Finestrella, a provider of innovative mobile telephony services to low-income and unbanked populations in Mexico. Finestrella will use the funding to rapidly expand the availability of its current offerings while developing new products and services, including smart phones and data plans that address the needs of its customers. Th...
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- Latin America
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How a Pharmaceutical Giant is Battling Malnutrition on the Ground in Haiti
All too often, corporate philanthropy involves dropping a wad of money on organizations that are doing work on an issue that the corporation "cares" about, and then saying goodbye. But sometimes, corporations actually bring their know-how and human capital to bear on a problem, in addition to just giving money. The global pharmaceutical company Abbott is taking the second path, focusing on long-lasting initiatives that can grow local economies in struggling areas. Case in point: Abbott’s ...
- Region
- Latin America
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Funding Sustainable Agriculture in Latin America
Recently, the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) through its Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) approved a loan and technical assistance of $4.9 million to Root Capital, a non-profit social investment fund. Root Capital provides finance for cooperatives, producers’ associations, and small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas producing under sustainable agricultural schemes in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. This project is aimed at providing an innovative financin...
- Region
- Latin America
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Bolivia’s First Crop Insurance Scheme Promises to Empower Farmers
Natural disasters can come with six-digit figures of damage and debt attached, even in Latin America’s poorest country. Bolivia ’s rural areas, still dependent on rain cycles, are the most financially vulnerable to drought, frost, hail, floods and other weather adversities. Lose your crops, farmers say, and you’re left with nothing but your debts. Luis Alvaro Toledo, who’s wo...
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- nutrition