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Rehabilitation and attack: microcredit helps the poor after all
FOR years the reputation of microfinance—which gives tiny loans to the poorest—rose and fell in tandem with relations between Grameen Bank and the Bangladeshi government. In 2006 the bank and its head, Muhammad Yunus, won the Nobel peace prize for reducing poverty and Mr Yunus toyed with setting up a political party, supposedly with the government’s blessing. Since then several studies have found limited or no benefits from microfinance, and in 2011 (for different reasons) a new government forced Mr Yunus to resign from the bank he had founded.
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- Uncategorized
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Here’s How You Help the Poor Without Soaking the Rich
We have to clear our minds of a fallacy about poverty alleviation: Helping the poor does not mean welfare. This isn’t to say that we don’t need welfare. Ignoring the unfortunate who can’t put enough food on the table or afford proper education or healthcare is not just cruel, it’s bad economics.
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Opinion: Can science eliminate extreme poverty?
There is always hope that scientific innovations will help solve global problems. So can scientists help solve the globe’s ultimate problem: eliminate extreme poverty?
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- Technology
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‘Lean So Far Into It That You’re At Risk’: … and 20 other quotable quotes from the Global Health & Innovation Conference
The Global Health & Innovation Conference, held over two days on the Yale University campus, provides an opportunity for some of the most innovative thinkers in health care around the world to exchange ideas.
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- Environment, Health Care
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Investing in Africa: the imperative to invest sustainably
There is no one way to do business in Africa. But through exploring both the opportunities and the challenges experienced by companies operating successfully in Africa, a number of key lessons can be unearthed.
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- Environment, Impact Assessment
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New-concept flood insurance could help Bangladesh’s poor
A new insurance scheme in which pre-determined flood thresholds trigger speedy compensation offers hope for poor people in flood-prone Bangladesh, experts say.
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- Uncategorized
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Indigenous leaders empowering communities through social enterprise
Initiatives such as a healing centre in the Amazon forest are helping indigenous groups protect and manage their own land.
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- Agriculture
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How Do You Measure the Bottom Line for Impact Investing?
Since 1993, when I was at the Yale School of Management, to my work with the Calvert Funds and Foundation and now with my company Honest Tea, I’ve been a part of hundreds of discussions and debates about how to evaluate the return on an impact investment.
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- Impact Assessment