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Mobile Money Operators Prepare to Roll Out Financial Services
Shut out by the formal banking sector for years, the un-banked and un-served communities in Nigeria will soon gains some respite as mobile money operators are preparing to roll out innovative solutions geared towards providing financial inclusion in the coming months. This is following the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) recent issuance of operating licenses to 11 mobile firms. The firms include: Fortis Money, UBA/Afripay, GTBank Mobile Money, Pagatech, eTranzact, Monetise, Earthole...
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Indego Africa: Lifting Africa’s Women Out of Poverty
Promoting access and opporutnity for business-minded African women [ Video ] ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Solar Stores Are Helping to Meet Rural Uganda?s Energy Needs
Attorney Sari Schwartz and Rachel Ishofsky, associate executive director of Jewish Heart for Africa discuss how cell phones and hair trimming in rural Uganda sparked the introduction of mobile solar kiosks. A pilot project, the aim is to see whether these solar stores can be run profitably, thus creating both an independent business and a source of safe, reliable energy. The focus of international development is shifting. Foreign assistance in its traditional form is being called into q...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Using Technology to Close the Gender Gap in Sierra Leone
Admire Bio has the reassured presence of a successful businesswoman, with an edge that reveals she is still hungry for more. Bio, 28, a single mother living with her parents, set up her first internet cafe in the Sierra Leone capital, Freetown, only a year ago. She has expanded with two more branches, and plans to go national if she can secure a bank loan. "My biggest motivation is...
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Why Zimbabwe’s Cool-Sounding Plan to Give Away Millions of CFLs Isn’t a Good Solution
Zimbabwe’s power supply is erratic, to say the least. The country imports nearly half of its power from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and it still has to turn off power supplies for up to 10 hours at a time just to keep up with demand. In an effort to curb power consumption, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) recently decided to hand out 5.5 million CFL bulbs at a cos...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Solar Irrigation Solutions in Africa
When you have to hand-deliver water to irrigate your farm, you aren’t going to have the best possible crop yields. If you have to pay for water from a nearby pump, if one exists, you’re not going to be able to get very much if your total budget is less than a dollar a day and your crop yield is still going to be pretty limited. But if you can manage to access the underground water table using a solar-powered pump that does not cost much to run, you can ease the burden of everyda...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Women Bringing Solar Power to Sierra Leone
A group of 12 women from villages in Sierra Leone is in the frontline of a battle to bring solar-powered electricity to rural communities. No small feat, given that rural Sierra Leone is not connected to power. The women were all trained at Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, in western ...
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Business Incubator for Marginalised Youths Debuts
In 10 years from now, 40 million Nigerians will become job seekers, and most of them would be unskilled hands. What do we do with these job seekers? Generation Enterprise (GEN) raised this question last week in Lagos. It is GEN’s mandate to solve this problem. GEN, a model that provides an end-to-end solution to youth poverty and unemployment, brought leaders in Nigeria’s public, private, and social sectors together in Lagos to tackle the related issues of youth unemployment and...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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