NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Exploring a Market-Based Approach to Malnutrition

Soon, low-income families in Kenya will be able to add to their diet a pre-cooked porridge product that is rich in proteins and vitamins and supplies the nine essential amino acids required by the human body. The porridge will not be delivered under the auspices of an aid agency or a governme...

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Tackling the Crisis of Urban Poverty in Kenya

NAIROBI, 19 January 2010 (IRIN) - Fridah Awour Agolla has sold vegetables in Nairobi’s Mathare slum for 20 years. In better times, her stock sold out every day. But lately market forces have begun to bite even harder for the millions in Kenya who live in such squalid, neglected settlements. "My customers are buying less and less; now I find that goods like vegetables do not sell out, they go into the next day. People’s ability to buy these goods has really dropped," A...

Source

IRIN (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Cash Alone Won?t Make Microfinance Work

NAIROBI/TRANSMARA, Kenya – Two years ago, fed up with a husband who drank too much and provided too little, Julie Amunga, who lives in the sprawling Mathare slum in the capital, Nairobi, decided to start a business that would enable her to support her family. “My friends and I all had husbands who drank too much and beat us at home and yet they were not providing anything for the home,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “We would sleep with other men secretly to provide fo...

Source

PlusNews East Africa (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Tanzania: New Hope as Chicken Project Takes Off

In the a quiet and laid-back Coastal Region, a pioneering new project involving poultry farming is giving ordinary people a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. Research Into Use (RIU) is a programme based in Dar es Salaam which aims at promoting innovations and utilisation of new knowledge and research output, to eradicate poverty. RIU has so far enabled a community in the Rufiji District to rear a hundreds of chicks each with the intent...

Source

The Citizen (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Kenya: Solar Sector in Huge Growth as Buyers Stream In

The slow penetration of electricity in Kenyan homes has opened a niche market for solar energy solutions. In the past few years, a number of entrepreneurs have joined the green business, mainly targeting low-income homes that have remained on the sidelines of electricity connections for decades. Less than 20 per cent of Kenya’s households are connected to the national grid, forcing them to rely on a mix of relatively costly, inefficient and unhealt...

Source

Business Daily (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sierra Leone: New Processing Centres Raise Cassava’s Outlook

Cassava’s profile as a food security and poverty-reducing crop got a boost with the commissioning of five new processing centres in Sierra Leone, thanks to the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute and other partners.

Source

TradeInvest Africa (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Uganda: VoIP Smile Communications Launches Today

Kampala - The seventh mobile operator in Uganda, Smiles Communication, starts operations today, using the 02 code. Irene Charnley, Smiles’ chief executive officer, yesterday said the firm targets the un-served, bottom of the pyramid consumers in Africa and the Middle East. "For the first time, individuals are offered free electronic identities and voice message boxes without needing to own a phone," said Charnley.

Source

The New Vision (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Social Entrepreneur Has Venture Backing to Light Up the World

D.light Design Inc., which manufactures and sells solar-powered lamps in poor areas of the globe, is an example of a company that seeks to bring entrepreneurship to a social mission. GlobalAtlanta met representatives of the company during the First East Africa Energy Conference held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in June. The company, which was incorporated in May 2007, opened its East Africa office in Tanzania this year. Sam Goldman, a co-founder, was a Peace Corps volunte...

Source

Global Atlanta (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa