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$1.4 Billion Fund Targets Eco-Social Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
The Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA) has announced the launch of five dedicated investment funds that will target high growth industries while promoting economic and social development in Angola and the Sub-Saharan region.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Foundations Like Ronnie Screwvala’s Swades Are Helping Entrepreneurs Emerge From Rural India
For Ronnie Screwvala this was an unusual success story. At a community centre in Khamgaon, a village 166 km south of Mumbai, he engaged a group of 25 rural women, all dressed in pink, aged between 30 and 40, in a discussion on sanitary napkins with great enthusiasm.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Indian Payments Company Oxigen Eyeing Up to $200 Million Expansion Drive
Payment solutions provider Oxigen is on a major expansion drive that includes hiring about 1,500 people and ramping up its payment network across semi-urban and rural India. The firm is also eyeing a large share of the remittances market and prepares the ground for launching a payments bank.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Four Major Banks Launch Branchless Banking Program in Indonesia
The Financial Services Authority (OJK), along with four of the nation’s largest banks, launched on Thursday a nationwide campaign on financial services without physical branches to help boost access to the banking system in rural areas.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Korean Social Enterprises Go Global
Social enterprises — businesses that prioritize human and environmental benefits equally to profits — are effective vehicles to achieve development goals as their market-based approaches bring sustainability and scalability that are essential to create long-term impact.
- Categories
- Environment
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Launches Digitization Scheme for Women Self-Help Groups
With an objective to promote financial inclusion, Nabard today started a pilot project for complete digitisation of women self help groups (SHGs) to improve the quality of interface between members and banks for efficient and hassle free delivery of banking services.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Who Moved My Cheese?: A social enterprise discovers that the dairy business is harder than it looks
In a poor region of Bolivia, goat milk producers often drink their own product, for lack of a market. Pro-Milk was launched to help them make and sell cheese instead. But the company was soon undermined by challenges in its business model and region. Fundación IES, a development institution that supported Pro-Milk, tells the story in the latest post in our business failure series.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Press Release: Better Than Cash Alliance Study Shows Colombia’s Digital Payment Tool for Coffee Farmers Is a Model to Replicate
The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) Smart Coffee ID Card (CCI), launched in 2006, has become a vital tool for financial inclusion and change in the productive dynamics of Colombia´s rural sector, according to the Better Than Cash Alliance (BTCA), a United Nations alliance of governments, companies and the development community committed to the global transition from cash to electronic payments.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Latin America
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