NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Brazil Launches Drive to Lift 16 Mln from Poverty

BRASILIA, June 2 (Reuters) - President Dilma Rousseff launched an ambitious plan on Thursday to eliminate dire poverty in Brazil within four years by lifting more than 16 million people from conditions of "misery." The "Brazil Without Misery" program is the signature policy of the former leftist guerrilla’s first term, her advisers said, fulfilling one of the key promises she made in her campaign for ...

Source

Reuters (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Major Microlaboratory Against Poverty

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 31, 2011 (IPS) - Microcredit in Brazil still has huge potential for expansion, even though microloans have already grown much more than traditional credit in the last eight years. Microcredit has formed a successful part of anti-poverty programmes since left-wing former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January 2003 and immediately launched the National Productive Microcredit Programme, targeting low-income households. ...

Source

IPSnews.net (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

IDB Creates SME Lending Facility

The Inter-American Development Bank has set up a $100 million facility to strengthen lending to small and medium-sized enterprises in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a May 19 press release, IDB called its SME Financing Facility as the first of its kind. The facility will channel resources through financial institutions in IDB borrowi...

Source

Devex News (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

MIF invests $3 MN in Columbian Fondo de Capital Privado Inversor

The Multilateral Investment fund (MIF) is investing $3 million in the Fondo de Capital Privado Inversor, a venture capital (VC) fund investing in companies with scalable business models that cater to the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) population in Colombia. The fund involves support from 10 founding institutions representing people from the social and financial sector,...

Source

Microfinance Focus (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Empowering Women With Microfinance: From Oxford, England to Lima, Peru

One week ago, I was on stage for the opening plenary of the Skoll World Forum in the scholarly, well-ordered university town of Oxford, England. Today, I am in the ramshackle home of an able, but very poor, businesswoman in the impoverished, raggedy outskirts of Lima, Peru. The connection? The Skoll World Forum is the preeminent global gathering of social entrepreneurs. Over 1,200 of the smartest, most...

Source

The Huffington Post (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

UNHCR Assists Microcredit Projects for Sex Workers in Ecuador

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR is providing support to a microcredit project in Ecuador to help the country’s ’vulnerable’ refugees break out of poverty and exploitation. Over the last year, the agency has been working with several organizations to set up self-reliance programmes for Colombian refugees and their hosts in Ecuador, which is home to the largest number of refugees in Latin America. Of the 53,342 recognized refugees, 73 per cent are wome...

Source

Microfinance Focus (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Haitian-made Crafts Land at Macy?s

With its tin roof and tiny façade hemmed in with razor wire, the shambling structure sitting on the edge of Cité Soleil - Port-au-Prince’s most notorious slum - is not what you’d imagine a toy factory to look like. The one-room shack doubles as the home of Reggie Jean-François, a muscle-bound Haitian man in his mid-30s who has first-hand experience of a U.S. federal prison, the U.S. deportation system and the rehabilitative power of Jesus Christ. Jean-Fran&c...

Source

The Globe and Mail (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

PepsiCo Foundation Announces $5 M Grant to IDB’s AquaFund

The PepsiCo Foundation recently announced a $5 million grant to the AquaFund, launched by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), to facilitate investment in water supply and sanitation, water resources, solid waste management and wastewater treatment. The AquaFund agreement was signed by Luis Montoya, President of PepsiCo Latin American Beverages, and Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the IDB, at the International Environment Summit in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The grant will fund a...

Source

Microfinance Focus (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Health Care

Region

Latin America