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This Hult Entrepreneur’s Social Enterprise Is Cleaning Up Uganda’s Informal Economy
In Kampala, Uganda, a proliferation of street vendors are unregistered and do not pay tax, working in an informal, illegal economy. Large urban areas are also notoriously-polluted, with street vendors working around fire hazards and breathing in harmful fumes - particularly charcoal smoke - on a daily basis.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Bank of Ghana to weed out unscrupulous microfinance institutions
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) is strengthening its licensing requirements in order to weed out unscrupulous microfinance institutions from the system. Dr Abdul-Nashiru Issahaku, the Governor of Bank of Ghana, said recent events had shown that unregulated and poorly supervised financial systems might lead to risky behaviours and undermine the growth process.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Fortune’s ‘Change the World’ Companies Profit From Doing Good
Few companies today can claim to be entering their fourthcentury in business. GlaxoSmithKline GSK -1.15% , the $37-billion-in-revenue pharmaceutical giant, is one of them, tracing its roots—by way of various corporate iterations, mergers, and rechristenings—to a London apothecary called Plough Court Pharmacy, established in 1715.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Opinion: Africans Investing in Africa: New Engine of Africa’s Growth
Rising disposable incomes, a young and talented population, growing urbanization, and an increasingly robust business climate have all combined to produce an emerging middle-class that is poised to drive consumption, innovation, industrialization and trade. Global investor confidence in Africa is higher than it has ever been.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Svadha: ‘The First Step for Households Is to Get a Dignified Toilet and Use It’
Svadha, a sanitation business founded in India in 2013, trains entrepreneurs to sell and help install sanitation and hygiene products, and then support them after the sale. The approach is working: In the past six month the company has doubled its revenue and the number of entrepreneurs in its network, to more than 200.
- Categories
- Health Care
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New Brookings Report Highlights Advances in Financial and Digital Inclusion
Utilizing quality, affordable formal financial services effectively enables individuals to save for the future, invest in their livelihoods and families, and protect themselves in the case of financial emergencies. At the macroeconomic level, financial inclusion provides opportunities to promote economic growth, reduce income inequality, and combat poverty.
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- Technology
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Outsourcing Transport and Logistics in Global Health
Routine maintenance required to keep cars, trucks and motorcycles moving simply does not happen in Africa, shortening the lifespan of the vehicles that are essential to delivering health commodities to the most remote communities. That means many institutions are declining to fund the capital expenditure required to purchase vehicles, parts or storage facilities – and governments and donors alike are identifying new ways to improve health supply chains and the transport systems they rely on.
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- Health Care, Transportation
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This Startup is Fixing Health Care…in Kabul
Aschkan Abdul-Malek had come to Afghanistan to solve problems. He was working for a consulting firm, and in 2013 was helping the World Bank study healthcare constraints in developing countries. One day, as he was home talking to his cook, he learned how personally devastating the healthcare problem could be: The cook was spending six times his annual income to fly his wife to India for medical care, because she couldn’t find the doctor she needed at home.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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