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Tackling the COVID-19 Hunger Crisis in Africa: How Digital Networks Can Empower Small Farmers and Avert a Looming Disaster
COVID-19 is bringing even wealthy nations to their knees, but it’s dealing the deadliest blow to the world’s most vulnerable people – including smallholder farmers in Africa. And as Leesa Shrader at Mercy Corps points out, this is rapidly turning a health crisis into a hunger crisis. She explores how tech-powered solutions can help them survive the pandemic and build resilience for the future.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Coronavirus
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Report: Research Explores the Impacts of Mobile Phones for Maasai Women
Mobile phones have the power to change the lives of women living in remote communities by reducing barriers to information and increasing access to local economies. However, the introduction of new technologies can hamper efforts to empower women by increasing disparities in power dynamics.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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At a Ugandan Factory, Workers Prove That ‘Periods Don’t Pause for Pandemics’
Following a Ugandan government directive, the team at AFRIpads faced a tough decision: shut down and sell off stocks, or transform the factory into a co-living space to remain in operation.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: Zimbabwe Hopes Rural Electrification Can Stop Deforestation. Here’s Why It Might Not Work
Researchers say bigger issues — poverty, corruption, inequality — can undermine rural energy programs if unaddressed.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing, Technology
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4,000 MSMEs and Youths in ASEAN Region Offered Digital Skills Training
Brunei launches ASEAN initiative to help small businesses and youths gain the skills needed in a digital economy.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- MSMEs, rural development
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Scaling Solar Irrigation to Fight the Global Food Crisis: Why Subsidies Could be the Solution
COVID-19 has triggered a global food emergency, as the number of people facing starvation could double to 265 million by the end of 2020. Samir Ibrahim at SunCulture explores how solar-powered irrigation systems can help smallholder farmers combat this crisis by drastically improving their yields – and discusses three reasons why smart subsidies can address the affordability barrier.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Coronavirus, Energy
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Viewpoint: COVID-19 in Rural Communities — Building Back Better in the Global South
As the COVID-19 pandemic has flooded the world and infiltrated many of the global south’s most rural, most impoverished communities, attention has turned to what the future will look like.
- Categories
- Coronavirus
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Viewpoint: South African Banks Need to Do More to Ensure Financial Inclusion
An analysis of financial inclusion in South Africa shows that affordability limits poor households’ access to formal financial services. In our study, which looked at people’s use of financial goods and services between 2008 and 2015, we found that there was a general increase in use. But this was severely skewed to households with higher incomes.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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