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The Quiet Revolution in Social Impact
There are currently 30 million African migrants who have left their home countries to find work elsewhere. They support more than 300 million people in their home countries, remitting essential food and goods, and in aggregate represent more than $10b in annual economic activity. This is an economy without an infrastructure, however, relying on informal channels and bribes to function.South African entrepreneur Suzana Moreira is working to change that. Her startup moWozauses SMS to help African migrants order, pay for, and select a place for parcel pickup.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Truly Local Power: African Wind Turbines Built From Scrap
Wind power isn’t used much in the developing world, since a turbine is much more expensive than a solar panel. But Access:energy is flipping that equation by finding ways to build the turbines in the communities where they’re needed.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Accion MFB Considers Customers’ Plight, Out With Low Interest Products
Accion Micro Finance Bank has come out with cheaper and low interest rate products to meet the needs of its customers.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Benin Makes Headway in Attempt to Reduce Deaths from Malaria
Last year Benin announced free treatment for malaria, and has now followed up by cracking down on fake drugs and recruiting an army of outreach health workers
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public health
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Mobile Phones Will Not Save the Poorest of the Poor
Entrepreneurs, businesses, NGOs, and governments exalt mobile technology as a game-changing tool to fight global poverty. But what if our eagerness to connect the world is inadvertently exacerbating the global economic divide? The cost of cellphone-based services is hurting huge swaths of the developing world.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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U.C. Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Lab Part of White House Poverty Push
Both the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory above it on the hill are part of a public-private push to fight poverty around the world.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Microfinance Services in Ghana Greeted With Hope, Concern
Microfinance, providing financial services to low-income clients, has gained popularity in Ghana in the past 20 years and has played an important role in helping the poor - especially women - improve their lives.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Is the Social Enterprise Bubble About to Burst?
Over the past two months, GOOD has profiled organizations in Africa using market solutions to solve water and sanitation challenges, improve agriculture, and promote public health. Social enterprises like these are transforming development work, and social entrepreneurs are being hailed as rock stars.But social enterprise isn’t the first trend to hit the development sector. From women’s empowerment to “sustainability” to microfinance, the aid community has moved through its stash of silver bullets. What makes social enterprise any different?
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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