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Social Business Roundup: A $1 Smartphone, the Upshot of Disparity and the Quizzing of Presidents
If you manufacture a phone that comes with apps advertising to low-income consumers, can you sell it for as little as $1? The folks at SocialEco think so. Other items NextBillion's editors came across for this week's Roundup included a concentration on wealth concentration, an unhappy birthday for M-Pesa, plus a presidential Q that will hopefully result in an A.
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- Health Care, Technology
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Client Outcomes Data in Microfinance: Few Have It But Everybody Needs It
Many recent studies have found that microfinance has no impact, or minimal positive impact, on clients’ lives. To find out why and to fix the problem, financial service providers need client outcomes data, but few FSPs collect it because they think it would be too expensive and time-consuming. Turns out, according to the SPTF Outcomes Working Group, it's not.
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- Uncategorized
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Find Good Partners and Don’t Quit: Lessons from a Water-Ag Innovator
Bart A.J. de Jonge and Si Technologies came up with a way to protect farmers around the world and their crops against increasingly common droughts that devastate local communities. He wanted to get the product in the hands of hands of millions of subsistence farmers quickly, but it took years, for a variety of reasons. Here, he offers advice to other social entrepreneurs, including this: "Change is a long haul, but don’t give up."
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- Agriculture
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India’s Government Thinks a Universal Basic Income Could Eradicate Poverty
India is considering a radical idea for tackling poverty: rolling out a Universal Basic Income (UBI), according to a report by the country's Ministry of Finance.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Tools of the Recycling Trade Include … Tricycles
Lagos has a trash collection problem. A very big one. When Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola heard about it, she thought it represented a business opportunity. So she started a recycling firm, Wecyclers, which shuttles recyclable materials from homes to processing centers on a fleet of tricycles. In this Q&A, she talks about how she got the idea and where she hopes to take it.
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- Environment, Social Enterprise
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Viewpoint: This is how to create inclusive growth for an Aspiring Africa
The “Africa Rising” narrative is increasingly giving way to that of “Aspiring Africa”, as the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) shrinks and the new middle class burgeons. Central to this new narrative is inclusive growth: the idea that economic growth must come with equitable opportunities for all participants, with benefits enjoyed by every section of society.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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A Week at the Cutting Edge: Eight Insights into Emerging Market Fintech
This post by Jake Kendall and Stephen Deng, about innovators prototyping and testing new fintech ideas at the first DFS Lab Fintech Bootcamp in Dar es Salaam, was December's most popular. It's now in the running for Most Influential Post of 2016. Today's the last day to vote for it – or any of the other 11 entrants. The winner will be announced Wednesday.
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- Technology
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Microfinance Looks Toward the Future – But Will Fintech Revive the Controversies of Its Past?
James Militzer's wrap-up of European Microfinance Week says microfinance has lurched from development sector darling to punching bag over the years, but in the midst of this turmoil – and in reaction to it – practitioners at industry events have been diligently reimagining their sector. That take earned Militzer a spot in our Most Influential contest. You can participate by casting a vote ... but you've only got one more day.
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- Uncategorized
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