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In Pakistan, Savings Circles Beat Banks
Ali has been selling wall clocks and wristwatches in a crowded Karachi market for 15 years. He’s been participating in savings circles with fellow shopkeepers for just as long, and has used the proceeds to buy a car and acquire a new store.Now he’s a few months away from getting 400,000 rupees ($4,100) from a savings group of 16 shopkeepers into which he’s been paying 1,000 rupees a day for almost a year. He plans to put a down payment on an apartment. “This system is flawless,” says Ali, 35, who goes by one name. “You can never save this way without this binding commitment of making payments every day or every month. At banks there are hassles and procedures that waste time. This is simple. The organizer comes to collect the money himself, and because of the trust element, it’s a given that we’ll get the money.”
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- North Africa & Near East
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Where social problems and business solutions meet
Israeli entrepreneurs seek to lure companies into the nascent field of development technology.
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- North Africa & Near East
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The Latest Way to Solve Poverty in the Middle East
In the last two years, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has increasingly focused on supporting social entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa region as a way of tackling the region’s socio-economic challenges that cause poverty.
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- North Africa & Near East
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- employment
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Egypt: Impact Investing Is Key to Inclusive Development in Egypt
Demographic pressures and years of under investment in meeting social needs suggest that Egypt will not be able to provide jobs, housing and basic services without adopting a wide strategy for inclusive development. Impact investing should be encouraged as one of the strategy's pillars.
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- North Africa & Near East
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Symbiotics’ impact bond issuance platform lends 10 million dollars to AccessBank in Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan’s leading microfinance bank, AccessBank, received 10 million dollars through MSME Bonds, Symbiotics’ impact bond issuance platform, on November 20, 2012.
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- North Africa & Near East
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Observing the Arab Spring, African Bankers Devise Economic Strategies
The African Development Bank (AfDB) was established in 1964 to guide the continent onto a path of sustainable pan-African economic growth and reduce poverty. Heading its efforts is Mthuli Ncube, chief economist and vice president at the multilateral bank, which is temporarily headquartered in Tunisia.
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- North Africa & Near East
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Is the Philanthropy Model Broken? Changemakers Discuss Social Entrepreneurship in Dubai
In Dubai, a city that is sometimes referred to as ‘soul-less’, over 150 social changemakers from across the Gulf gathered at the Capital Club in DIFC a couple of weeks ago to discuss how our models of social entrepreneurship and philanthropy can evolve.
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Mideast, North Africa trail behind globe for working women
(ANSAmed) - Rome, October 26 - Just 22% of those who work in the Middle East and North Africa are women. The average is 27% in Egypt, Jordan, Lybia, Morocco and Tunisia.
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- North Africa & Near East
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- employment