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Uganda: Understanding Consumer Protection in Microfinance
Lately, the Microfinance industry has come under the spot-light with critics arguing that microfinance institutions drifted away from their core and initial mission of working to uplift the poor out of poverty through micro loans. Critics argue that the entire microfinance business is now commercialized. This is what has probably resulted into draconian recovery methods; forexample in Mexico where loan officers take children after their parents are unable to make microfinance loans; to India ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Improving the Lot of Small Enterprises
To address the problems facing small enterprises, especially the micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the Nigeria MSME Project, a pilot initiative of the Federal Government and the World Bank in Abia, Kaduna and Lagos states, have come to the rescue. The trouble with small enterprises will always attract discussions. If you ask the small business owner what the trouble is, he will tell you it is funding. But he is wrong. True, funding is a problem, but it is not all the ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Microsoft Donates $250,000 of Software to Create IT Jobs for Youth in Kenya
Microsoft Corp. announced today a donation of software with a retail value of $250,000 to Digital Divide Data (DDD). The grant, from Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential program, will support DDD to bring its social business model to Kenya. The new venture will provide services such as data entry, XML conversion and digital preservation for publishers, libraries, content hosts, academic researchers and businesses. Microsoft’s software will be used to provide training and client servi...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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LeapFrog Invests $14M in Insurer Apollo
NAIROBI, Kenya, April 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- LeapFrog Investments has announced a landmark investment of $14 millioninto East African insurance group Apollo Investment Ltd, the largest deal in the history of microinsurance in Africa. Launched with President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2008, LeapFrog’s $135 million fund invests in companies providing insurance to under-served people in emerging markets. In Africa, LeapFrog...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Kenyan Women Pulling Together Against Poverty
KIAMBU DISTRICT, Kenya, Apr 13, 2011 (IPS) - When it works, it’s spectacular: Esther Ngonyo Njuguna’s dairy project stands as testimony to the potential of microcredit schemes to boost rural incomes. Eight years ago, Mama Njoki - "Njoki’s mother" as Njuguna is affectionately called in honor of one of her five children - says she was a housewife in the Kiambu District of Central Kenya. Her husband is an accountant, earning enough to cover household expenses. ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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COWAN Empowers Rural Women Through Micro Credit Facility
Country Women Association of Nigeria (COWAN) said it’s been empowering rural women in 32 states of the country through its micro credit facility by granting revolving loans as low as N20,000,00. Speaking at a workshop organized by the Lagos State chapter of the Association titled ’The Role of Rural Women In Nigeria’s Agriculture After Golden Jubilee’ in Lagos, the National President of the Association, Chief Mrs Bisinuola Ogunleye, said that using the &...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Heirs Holdings, TEF Sign Deal with Tanzanian Firm
The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) and Heirs Holdings Limited (HH) have announced the completion of an impact investment programme with Mtanga Farms, a Tanzanian based organisation as part of efforts to boost food security in Africa. A statement from the HH at the weekend, explained that the deal marked the first time an African organization and an investment firm have engaged together in impact investing, adding that the approach that is targeted at solving social and environmental prob...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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New Project in Ghana Aims to End Female Servitude in Agriculture
Hundreds of young women still held as slaves to priests under traditional “Trokosi” religion The priests -- mostly maize and black bean farmers -- are taught improved farming skills so they can do without female slaves. The women learn to support themselves with new skills such as sewing and hair dressing. "The priests have vast plots of land for agriculture," says Patience Vormawor, project officer at IN Networg Ghana. "We help them to improve on their system of...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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