NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Technology Giants Push to Alleviate African Poverty

Some of the world’s leading information technology corporations are in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, for what organizers are calling a historic summit focusing on Africa’s growing IT sector. Representatives of tech giants are calling for business solutions to alleviate poverty. Noel King has this report from Kigali. Industry leaders say chronic poverty in Africa will be alleviated by investment in information technology, rather...

Source

Voa News (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Connecting Africans to Web potential

Today, technology experts are meeting with leaders of 10 African countries in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. It’s the Connect Africa Summit . The goal is to increase the continent’s access to the Internet, and attract investment opportunities for economic growth. Gretchen Wilson reports from rural South Africa. On the side of the road, 20-year-old Esther Tlou sells plastic gas c...

Source

Marketplace (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Drug Delivery

How do you get basic care to the remotest villages in Africa? One clever idea is to borrow tactics from retail chains like McDonald’s and Subway --operate an easy-to-replicate, owner-operated franchise system focusing on health care. Minnesota lawyer and businessman Scott Hillstrom started HealthStor...

Source

Forbes.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

How to release energies of the poor

For Richard Ndungu, the CEO at KPMG, when a company re-organises or repackages her products to facilitate access by the poor people, it is engaging in corporate social responsibility. Speaking at a SIFE Kenya CEO?s luncheon, Ndung?u pointed out that by unbundling a ?Bamba Fifty? Safaricom empowered millions of Kenyans who would otherwise have never used cell phone services. Equity Bank was also cited as another example of a fast growing bank in the East Afric...

Source

Business Daily Africa (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Scojo Foundation and Population Services International (PSI) have signed a five-year pan-Africa agreement to make reading glasses available to the millions of Africans who lack this simple, essential health product and tool for economic development. For most Africans living in poverty, reading glasses are unobtainable due to barriers of cost, access, and awareness. Without reading glasses, people who need to see up close to earn a living, such as weavers, farmers, electricians, and artisans, ...

Source

Scojo Foundation News

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

How big a change have cellphones made to Africa? I shout the question at Isis Nyong’o, over the throbbing bassline of a Kenyan ragga track. She tells me calmly: It’s had about the same effect as a democratic change of leadership. I’d expected hype from a Kenyan-American executive at MTV Networks Africa but by now I believed the hype myself. It was not the bling, the fashion models with candy-floss hair - it was the Nairobi teenagers mobbing the entr...

Source

BBC (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Uganda: DFCU Boosts SMEs

DFCU Limited has received credit worth sh22b from the European Investment Bank to lend to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Announcing the deal, Moses Kibirige, the executive director, said the facility would serve SMEs interested in expanding and growing their businesses through leasing over the next one year. The funds will finance eligible SMEs in agro-business, fishing, mining, construction, tourism, transport, education and health care, Kibirige said.

Source

New Vision (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

India-China Emerge Strong Business Partners Of Africa: Study

Chinese and Indian firms are increasingly doing business in sub-Saharan Africa, and their interest in the continent extends well beyond a hunt for natural resources, Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Sunday quoting the study titled Africa’s Silk Road: China and India’s new Economic Frontier as saying. These two emerging economic giants of Asia are at the centre of the explosion of African-Asian trade and investment, a striking hallmark of the new trend in...

Source

Bernama.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa