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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.
- Categories
- 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.
- Categories
- 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.
- Categories
- 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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U.S. Small Business Administration and Grameen America Partner to Provide Microloans for Entrepreneurs
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and Grameen America, Inc., a leading nonprofit microfinance organization, today announced a renewed partnership to extend a capital pipeline to underserved American entrepreneurs. Effective immediately, Grameen America will join SBA's Microloan Program as an intermediary lender recipient of $2.5 million.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- North America
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A Roadmap that Bypasses the Public Health Care System
A year ago, uber Diagnostics commercially launched Cardiotrack, a handheld ECG monitor. Since then, the company has learned some hard lessons about inefficiencies in India's public health sector. In response, it started a program to provide ambulances with health diagnostics devices, plus a separate home health care service designed to generate jobs.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Fintech isn’t disrupting Africa’s financial industry—it’s building it
African fintech is not disrupting the existing financial service providers. This is because, in many areas of the continent, there is nothing to disrupt, with large swathes of the low and lower middle income segments unserved or under-served when it comes to formal financial services.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa