NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Activate 2011: Mobiles Look Set to Play a Big Role in Africa’s Development

The mobile phone will have a dramatic impact on development in Africa over the next five years, declared Rakesh Rajani of Twaweza at the Activate conference this week on technology and social change in London. The technology industry has a track record of hype, but Rajani’s comments sound plausible given the huge number of pilot projects for mobiles in Africa in all areas of development. A race is on to find what...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Can Matt Damon Bring Clean Water to Africa?

Once upon a time, Matt Damon went for a long walk in rural Zambia. The devoted family man and method philanthropist was accompanying a 14-year-old Zambian girl who had no idea that her hiking companion was an Academy Award-winning international heartthrob. The walk came toward the end of a 10-day African journey, a systematic primer on the complexities of the continent’s extreme poverty that had been organized for Damon by staffers from his friend Bono’s ONE campaign. Damon was ...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Agriculture

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Slideshow: Inzozi Nziza, a Social Enterprise, Creates a Market for Ice Cream in Rwanda

It’s an unlikely place for an ice cream shop, and an even more unlikely batch of people to be running it. Inzozi Nziza, or "Sweet Dreams" in Kinyarwanda, is Rwanda’s first and only local ice cream shop. Located in the small university town of Butare, it celebrated its one year anniversary this week. While its struggles have been great, from importing a soft-serve ice cream machine into this tiny landlocked country where only one person knows (kind-of) how to fix it,&...

Source

Dowser (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Energy is Central to Development

Energy , it seems, is the Cinderella of development policy. Listen to governments, aid agencies and the big foundations, and the priorities have been malaria, maternal mortality, vaccinations, HIV - health has hoovered up attention and aid dollars in the last decade. Education has come a close second. Now attention is slowly moving to include agriculture and food security, but the rhetoric is ...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Africa’s Women Mean Business ? But They Need Finance

Inclusion was the big theme of the African Development Bank annual meeting in Lisbon last week, an acknowledgement that impressive economic growth numbers don’t tell the whole story. As the president of the AfDB, Donald Kaberuka, acknowledged at the start of proceedings, the bank had got it wrong in Tunisia and Egypt - although as one bank official pointed out, good things had been accomplished in Tunisia by President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in ...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Counterintuitive Innovation that Works: Five Takeways from Stima Systems at SOCAP

"We don’t sell our products, we don’t market them, and we don’t take them to our clients" - CEO Konrad App of micro-leasing solar energy company Stima Systems . Showcasing at the SOCAP/Europe conference last week, members of the Stima team, Konrad App, Matt Jervis, Homayoon Shahinfar and James Kimisoi, caught my attention with their counterintuitive yet su...

Source

Dowser (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Garbage Disposal Innovation Wins Kenyan Firm Sh4.2 Million Award

A local garbage disposal concept has won the Dell Social Innovation Award for 2011, the latest conquest by a Kenyan firm in the world of innovations with high social impact. TakaTaka Solutions, a social enterprise that collects and recycles waste in Nairobi, won the Sh4.2 million top prize in the global competition for its waste management solution, and will use the money to bankroll its recycling programme. "The team exemplifies ingenuity, passion and entrepreneurial spirit. The ...

Source

Business Daily (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Safaricom ? 56% Growth in M-PESA Revenue

Last week, Safaricom announced its annual results [1] . It has confirmed an increased turnover (+12.9% to Ksh. 94.83bn). However, after several years of sustained growth, Safaricom experienced a 12.4% drop in profits before tax due to increased competition. Nevertheless, a more interesting figure to highlight is the 56% growth in M-PESA revenue for the year 2011. With almost 14 mil...

Source

Mobile-Financial.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa