-
Mini-grids could be a boon to poor people in Africa and Asia
Vijay Bhaskar of Mlinda says a big mistake in development has been to assume that, once people are hooked up to electricity, businesses will automatically flourish. People have to be taught how to make the most of power, he says. “Bringing energy is the easy part. The hard part is finding productive ways to make use of it.”
- Categories
- Energy
-
Developing countries may need their own strategies to cope with job-taking robots
Reports by the McKinsey Global Institute and the World Bank both suggest that agricultural and industrial sectors have higher potential for automation than service sector jobs, which typically require creative thinking or face-to-face interaction.
- Categories
- Technology
-
Siemens Stiftung launches empowering people. Award 2019 for social enterprises
According to a statement, entries will be assessed by technology and business experts, and the top three winners will be selected by an experienced international jury panel. The first prize is worth 50,000 Euros, with 30,000 and 20,000 Euros awarded to the second and third prize winners respectively.
-
Viewpoint: The Future of International Development: South-South Cooperation
The Western development system has largely been premised on the flow of knowledge and financing from the “Global North” to the “Global South” with the goal of assisting in driving economic development and poverty alleviation. Ironically, the expertise flowing from the “developed” world represents best practices from countries that have never been able to solve their own poverty.
-
This class helps developing-world solutions reach people in need
The innovations emerging from Stanford University’s Design for Extreme Affordability course are both viable business models and sensitive to local needs.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
-
Measuring Up: USAID Proposes New Indicators to Assess Countries’ “Journey to Self-Reliance”
“The ultimate goal of foreign assistance must be to work toward the day when foreign assistance is no longer necessary, and we must measure our work by how far every investment moves us closer to that day,” said Fine, who is Acting Assistant to the Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
-
Press release: Village Enterprise Promotes Campaign to End Poverty in Times Square
"Village Enterprise provides rural Africans living in extreme poverty with the tools and resources they need to start sustainable businesses and savings groups," said Village Enterprise CEO Dianne Calvi. "With the profits and savings from their businesses, entrepreneurs can send their children to school, feed their families more nutritious food, and break cycles of poverty that can span generations."
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
Making Agritech Work for Smallholders: What Tech Companies Can Learn from Development Organizations
Agritech proponents argue that technology is the key to helping the world's 500 million smallholder farmers. Yet despite countless ‘ICT for development’ companies and projects, these solutions often fall short of their intended impacts. This raises an important question: Can the methodologies that have proven successful for many tech startups work for the complex, interrelated challenges faced by smallholders? Wouter Vink of GreenFingers argues that there's a better approach.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise, Technology