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Microloans: Boon or bane for Cambodia’s rural poor?
Microfinance evokes both wariness and optimism here in the Cambodian countryside, where low incomes and savings mean farmers often borrow small sums at high interest rates to fertilize their plots.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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How This Chinese Fintech Company Is Innovating by Leasing Cows
While global investors have often honed in on China’s booming urban centers, Chinese financial tech firms are beginning to look at the middle kingdom’s increasingly affluent rural, farming-based consumers.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- fintech, rural development
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Something Doesn’t Add Up: Improving Basic Math Skills Among Microentrepreneurs in Rural India
Running any business requires a basic knowledge of arithmetic. Entrepreneurs need to calculate change due on a sale, profits and loss, commissions on product sales, and interest rates on loans. If they can't, their business will likely struggle. As part of a study to identify whether basic math skills contribute to entrepreneurial success in rural India, Madura Microfinance assessed the numerical capabilities of microentrepreneurs. The results were surprising – and somewhat alarming.
- Categories
- Education
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Why We Broke Up the Company: A Former CEO of M-Agri Pioneer Esoko Explains
After a rapid revenue increase and the development of a mobile commerce platform, Esoko saw that it had some challenges balancing its very different product lines. Former CEO Hillary Miller-Wise walks us through the m-agri pioneer's decision to spin off into two companies.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise, Technology
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$1.5 Billion Microgrid Market Opportunity Emerges in Kenya
A confluence of innovation, risk taking, and public and private effort has created a five-year, $1.5 billion microgrid market opportunity in Kenya, leading Germany’s TFE Consulting to dub the East African nation, “The World’s Microgrid Lab.”
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Communications tech biggest catalyst for ICT in Africa – Gartner
Speaking to ITWeb Africa ahead of the Gartner Symposium scheduled for September in Cape Town, principal research analyst William Hahn said Gartner's 2017 Hype Cycle for ICT in Africa confirms that communication technologies are setting the ICT agenda for the region.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Cycling to success: A road to empowerment for rural girls in India
India has a long way to go to ensure that every girl has the opportunity to complete secondary school. Fortunately, simple interventions, like the humble bicycle, which can promote accessibility to distant schools, and providing life skills education can increase school retention rates, improve learning outcomes, and reduce early marriages.
- Categories
- Education
- Region
- South Asia
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Rural India Is Recovering From the Cash Ban
India’s micro-finance industry, which provides small loans to entrepreneurs and business owners who have little collateral, was slammed when the government withdrew high-denomination bank notes from circulation late last year in a bid to stamp out corruption.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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