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Africa Election Watch 2011: Zambia
Was this the referendum on Chinese business in Africa? In a somewhat surprising turn, perennial opposition leader Michael Sata secured victory this week against incumbent president Rupiah Banda in Zambia’s national election. Sata is known as "King Cobra" for his often vituperative statements that have targeted Chinese business practices in Zambia.
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- Uncategorized
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The Doughnut Hole in Sustainable Finance
Despite the recent upsurge in attention to "social," "impact," and "clean tech" investing, there is still a structural gap ? a doughnut hole ? in sustainable finance. But this also means that there is a huge opportunity for visionary financiers to invent the new investment categories and asset classes needed to fill this gap.
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- Environment, Technology
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All that Glitters is Good?
In the old and dusty-yet-safe world of development aid, things were easy: Profit was at best a necessary evil of the private sector, at worst a sign that the poor were exploited as cheap labour or consumers. In the new world of impact investing and "BoP strategies", things become more entangled.
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- Impact Assessment
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From No Doctor to E-Doctors in Rural India
There aren’t too many doctors in the village of Hari Ke Kalan, in the Punjab region of northern India. But for $1, residents who bicycle to a new health clinic in town can get an appointment with a physician who appears on a large-screen television, beamed in over broadband Internet. The clinic, built by a startup called Healthpoint Services, is one of a network of eight "e-health points" that the for-profit company has built in India as part of a growing effort by entrepreneurs to ...
- Region
- South Asia
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Why Should a Mainstream For-Profit Company Pursue an In-Kind BoP Partnership?
Many entrepreneurs and funders at SOCAP11 are skeptical about partnerships - and rightly so. But sometimes all the work to make partnerships click pays off. In the case of an ongoing partnership between UNICEF and for-profit Frog Design, the impact results in Malawi and Zambia include a 30% increase in early diagnosis of HIV/AIDS in children.
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- Social Enterprise
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Mozambikes Pedals to Promote Development Via Low-Cost Bicycles
Lauren Thomas is working hard to get more Mozambicans on two wheels. Thomas, a former investment banker who traded New York for Maputo, is the co-founder of Mozambikes, a fledgling business that aims to provide high-quality bicycles at affordable prices through an innovative business model.
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- Education, Transportation
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Accelerating BoP Development at the Intersection of CSR & Impact Investing
Innovation in base of the pyramid development flourishes at the intersections. Through a new collaborative model, the BoP management strategy and innovation firm, I-DEV International, focuses on the intersection of multi-national corporate interests and impact investing to build lasting, profitable, and high-impact SMEs at the BoP.
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The BOP and Corruption
Focus on BOP has strong economic potential and the power to alter markets; can the same theory have similar impact on economics of corruption?How do you define the BOP of corruption? The bottom end of this pyramid is made up of the ordinary middle class Indians. If 45 percent have paid a bribe then it has to be the great Indian middle class.
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