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The government has channelled ?85 billion (approx US$9.4 million) through the rural banks for lending as micro-credit to the economically active but poor in the rural areas for them to improve the quality of their lives. The Vice- President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, announce...
85bn Cedis Micro-Credit For Rural PoorNews
by David Ajao The case for prepaid international roaming in Africa is very strong indeed. Most subscribers on cellular networks in Africa are on the prepaid platform. What better way could there have been to reach out to this large number of people who form the majority? None. Background According to Wikipedia, Roaming is a general term in wireless telecommunications that refers to the extending of connectivity service in a network that is differe...
Prepaid Roaming in AfricaNews
Remittances from Africans working abroad in the period 2000-2003 averaged about US$17 billion per annum virtually overtaking Foreign Direct Investment flows which averaged about $15 billion per annum during the same period. These figures are contained in a report Resource Flows to Africa: An Update on Statistical Trends just released by the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa in New York. The report draws on official data from the World Bank, United Nat...
Remittances to Africa Overtakes Foreign Direct InvestmentNews
KOLKATA: Call it a business with a good cause. A strong but silent social revolution is taking place beyond urban borders. Surpassing all targets, an overwhelming number of 18 lakh credit-linked ?self help groups? (SHGs), being predominantly women-oriented, are working wonders in rural areas and in managing micro finance matters. Cumulative bank lendings to SHGs have grown to almost Rs 8,000 crore till November 2005. The southern states of Andhra Pra...
A silent rural revolution in managing microfinanceNews
Occasionally, women with ties to Asia and Africa spend an evening with my fiber-arts group unveiling trunks of hand-dyed fabric, mud cloth, intricate beads and batiks. We sip wine, ooh and aah over the items, and haggle for them without mercy. This repositioning of a Third World marketplace into our first-world living rooms is at the core of eradicating global poverty. My friends and I want art-making materials as authentic as they come. We’re also attracted to temporarily eclips...News
Speakers discuss the importance of community radio in South Asia at conference Speakers at a two-day National Consultation on ’Community Radio in Bangladesh’ yesterday said community radio will play a significant role at grassroots level for rural development. They said it can focus on issues of agriculture, gender inequality, education, trade and commerce, disaster, weather, natural calamities, poverty and social problems. The speakers said ...
BANGLADESH: Community radio to play key role in rural developmentNews
In South Africa, where 6.5 million people are HIV positive and more than 500,000 would benefit from immediate anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy, a U.S. company is using private-sector efficiency and information technology to expand access to the life-saving drugs. BroadReach Healthcare, founded in 2002 to increase access to health care around the world, received $4.1 million in 2005 and will receive a similar amount in 2006 from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PE...
US Company Expands Access to Aids Drugs in South AfricaNews
Dakar As world leaders call for the benefits of new technologies to be shared more evenly around the globe, the reality on the ground in West Africa is a stark reminder of just how much work remains to be done. Gathered together at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last week, international leaders such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and African Union President Olusegun Obasanjo argued for a bridging of the so-called digital divide between regions ru...
West Africa: Minding the Information And Communication Gap
