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Viewpoint: Tax on internet, mobile cash will dim ‘Silicon Savannah’ dream
Kenya is a rising star in ICT and is fondly referred to as the “Silicon Savannah”. ICT exhibits potential to be a key player in turning around an overburdened economy and could even haul Kenya into industrialisation. Over-taxing it is hardly the way to run around the wheel and reinvent growth.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, public policy, regulations
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Navigating fintech’s rise: IMF, World Bank launch guide for policymakers
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank jointly released a paper intended to guide policymakers around the world in their handling of the rise of financial technology — commonly known as fintech.
- Categories
- Finance
- Tags
- fintech, public policy
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Viewpoint: CalPERS election earthquake should shake up responsible investment narrative
This argument is that the CalPERS Board is a captive of the staff, which itself is in turn a captive of favored investment consultants and asset managers. Given large union support for Mathur, the Naked Capitalism headline partially read, “Repudiation of Captured Board and Labor Leaders.”
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- North America
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing, public policy
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Could this be the start of the end of world poverty?
There have been extraordinary achievements over the past 15 years on many fronts. Extreme poverty has fallen dramatically and child deaths have halved. Yet the pace of global poverty reduction is slowing and the number of extreme poor in Africa is still rising.
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Twice as many African presidents made it to China’s Africa summit than to the UN general assembly
A Quartz analysis of the African principals who spoke at the general debate using the country list published by the UN shows fewer African presidents attended the general assembly in New York than were at the third summit of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation that took place in Beijing two weeks earlier in September.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Introducing the Mobile Money Regulatory Index
The Mobile Money Regulatory Index is intended to support dialogue between regulators and mobile money providers on reforms that can promote market growth. For the development community, the Index will help identify subject areas and markets where technical assistance to governments and regulators can have the biggest impact.
- Categories
- Finance
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Benin is the latest African nation taxing the internet
The new law has been denounced, with citizens and advocates using the hashtag #Taxepamesmo (“Don’t tax my megabytes”) to call on officials to cancel the levy. The increased fees will not only burden the poorest consumers and widen the digital divide, but they will also be “disastrous” for the nation’s nascent digital economy, says ISF’s executive director Julie Owono.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public policy
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Viewpoint: India’s Cash Ban Failed Even to Create a Bank Savings Culture
What’s going on? Some have argued that lower interest rates are the problem. That’s not an easy sell: Over the past year, India was one of the few countries with strongly positive real rates — and savings in bank deposits were a higher fraction of disposable income back in 2012-14, when Indians were dealing with negative real interest rates.
Perhaps, instead, a change in behavior is responsible.- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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