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Faster Energy Access Requires Better Data: This ‘Smart Platform’ Aims to Provide It
Despite the Sustainable Development Goals’ ambitious call for universal energy access by 2030, over 2 billion people still lack reliable electricity. Distributed renewable energy technologies could bridge this gap, but most countries suffering from energy poverty have yet to truly embrace them. One solution, say Rebekah Shirley and Monkgogi Otlhogile at Power for All, is for this fast-evolving sector to have more comprehensive and current data. To that end, the organization has built a free, open-access platform that helps users draw meaningful insights about energy access from the latest data. They discuss the platform and its benefits in this post.
- Categories
- Energy
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Press release: Nine new projects focused on financial inclusion to receive more than US $9 million
Lindsay Wallace, Director of Strategy and Learning at the Mastercard Foundation, said: “The aim of the FRP has always been to enable smallholder farmers and poor people living in rural Africa to reach their full potential by supporting new private sector initiatives that provide access to financial services. We’re very happy to see this latest round of selected firms, demonstrating the depth and breadth of ideas and action plans that will do just that.”
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Cracking the Nut: How a Cashew Enterprise Empowers Women in Rural Bali
Each day, East Bali Cashews (EBC) processes about 800 pounds of raw cashews, preparing them for snack production. The Indonesian company was launched about five years ago after a health care volunteer saw the impoverished conditions many agricultural workers face, and it now employs 400. But the statistic that most impresses Nadia Putri, an MBA candidate at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, is that more than 80 percent are women. After interning there this summer, Putri details how EBC works to advance women by providing training in everything from English to Excel.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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How to Build an Impact Industry: Four Strategies from the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
Almost 3 billion people worldwide cook with materials that are inefficient, unsustainable and polluting. Since 2010, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves has sought to make clean stoves and fuels commonplace across the developing world, by building an industry that could deliver this vision. Colm Fay and Ted London at the William Davidson Institute share insights from the Alliance's efforts to catalyze this new industry, breaking down four key stages of acceleration and their lessons for other impact-based accelerators.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Building Markets, Building Cohesion: Lessons from Last-Mile Deliveries
In 2016, Myanmar was a nation emerging from decades of conflict and isolation. Kopernik, the UNDP and Mercy Corps responded with a pilot program that utilized technology distribution as an avenue to strengthen social cohesion in the country's remote rural communities. Tomohiro Hamakawa and Vanesha Manuturi of Kopernik share development lessons learned from the program — lessons with the potential to benefit other emerging market communities making a comeback from histories of conflict.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
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Solar Startups Are Plugging Africa’s Energy Gap
Based on current trends, the World Bank predicts that even by 2040 over half a billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa will still lack electricity. Although energy use across sub-Saharan Africa has risen by 45% since 2000, supply has not kept pace with demand.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: Impact of digitisation: The new rural reality
Rural India contributes a substantial part of the total net value added in many sectors, with an overall 46% contribution to Indian national income.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Press release: BBOXX pilots internet service to expand from off-grid electricity to additional utilities
In Rwanda, BBOXX has created internet connections via Wi-Fi Hotspots in a joint venture with Axiom Networks. So far, 10 fixed hotspots, powered by BBOXX solar systems, have been installed for the pilot.
- Source
- Press release
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- data, rural development
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