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Developing Health, Developing Profits
Pfizer’s Dr Ponni Subbiah is at the forefront of a revolution in the way the pharma industry views its business, who it believes its customers are, and how it can be socially responsible. There is currently much talk of pharma’s emerging markets - China, India, Brazil, Russia - but this expanded world view still excludes most countries, and billions of the world’s population. The most potent symbol of global poverty - and dire health needs that go with it - is sub-Saha...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Rwanda Rising: A New Model of Economic Development
Nobody likes to say "No, Mr. President." So three years ago, when Costco CEO Jim Sinegal got a call from shareholder Dan Cooper, a partner in Chicago’s Fox River Financial Resources, asking if he’d have lunch with Rwandan president Paul Kagame, he agreed. That meeting in New York led to a presidential stop at Costco HQ near Seattle. Which led to Sinegal’s promise to visit Rwanda. "I made it in a moment of weakness," he says, "before I realized how long it takes to get there." He e...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Avon Calling: Could Beauty Be a Path Out of Poverty?
"No! No! No!" Oxford business professor Linda Scott does not use Avon products. In fact, she says with a smile, "One of the worst things that ever happened to me is that a friend of mine started selling Avon." But she believes her research in South Africa could prove a fascinating hypothesis: that becoming an Avon lady could help poor women in developing nations knock on prosperity’s door. Scott is a cultural historian-turned-marketing professor who first got interested in stud...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Why Foreign Aid is Hurting Africa
The Wall Street Journal -- online.wsj.com ...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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A Company Prospers by Saving Poor People’s Lives
It all started with mosquito nets. Or, no, with guinea worm filters. Or, before that, with a million yards of wool in the mountains of Sweden. Or, taken back another generation, to uniforms for hotel and supermarket workers. There are plenty of charitable foundations and public agencies devoted to helping the world’s poor, many with instantly recognizable names like Unicef or the Gates Foundation. But private companies with that as their sole focus...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Microfinance bank pledges commitment to SMEs
T HE Crowned Eagle Microfinance Bank Limited has made a commitment to add more value to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Speaking at the pre-launching news conference of the bank recently at Ikorodu, the President/Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Mr. Ben Tai Ojomo explained that their commitment to SMEs was to add value to their business with enhanced credit facilities. His words: We would position ourselves as a bank for small and medium size businesses and hel...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Vodafone rules out bidding for MTN in wake of Bharti offer
Vodafone yesterday insisted that it had no plans to make a bid for MTN, a leading mobile phone operator in Africa and the Middle East. The UK group last week reviewed the case for making a bid for MTN after Bharti Airtel, India’s largest wireless operator, made an informal offer for a controlling stake in the Johannesburg-listed company. Bharti’s indicative offer was for 51 per cent of MTN’s equity at R160 per share. That valued MTN’s entire equity at...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Africa’s top entrepreneurs can find the path to global markets
Swaziland alone has 70 000 such micro enterprises. Why is this the case? Money? That’s usually what an SME owner will say. Indeed, SMEs needs capital to start up and expand. In developed economies, most start-ups are self-financed with help from the four Fs: founders, family, friends and foolhardy strangers. In Africa this strategy is possible only for a lucky few. For unproven entrepreneurs, or those lacking adequate collateral, capital can be very hard to come by...
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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