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Three Messages from BRAC’s Frugal Innovation Forum to the Skoll World Forum
Small is beautiful, but big is necessary. In Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, many development practitioners live by this creed. But at last month’s Frugal Innovation Forum: Scaling Simple Solutions, everyone agreed that they don’t get nearly enough opportunities to talk shop and compare notes within the region. Taking place in Dhaka from March 30-31, the forum was the first ever gathering of South Asian development practitioners, hosted in South Asia, specifically to talk about scaling frugal innovations.
- Categories
- Technology
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Gums, Not Guns: How Mali entrepreneurs are offering a path to peace
In Mali’s southern villages, gums, not guns, are proliferating. These natural gums are being harvested from trees that grow wild across the African Sahel, and exported to Europe to meet rising demand for their use in products from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics to baked goods. In 2010 Root Capital is offered financing to gum producer Produits du Sud to secure contracts with international buyers and expand its reach from 30 farmers spread across five villages to 2,000 farmers in 200 villages in 2012.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Killer quinoa? Time to debunk these urban food myths
Twenty years ago, quinoa was pretty much unknown. Now, it’s in everyone’s cafeteria. Its price is going through the roof. And that, in the confused minds of Western foodies, is somehow a bad thing.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
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The Gyaner Haats – knowledge bazaars – of Bangladesh
Faruk Ul Islam explains how his charity is developing networks that build on official channels to reach deeper into communities
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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PM says rural-urban divide in telecom growth must be bridged for socially inclusive growth
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the full potential of telecommunication in enabling higher growth would not be realised until the use of telephones spread much wider in the rural economy of India as well.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Telemedicine Still Not Reaching Rural India
Building brick-and-mortar hospitals to cater to a country that accounts for more than a sixth of the world’s population is a near impossibility. At present, 65 percent of India’s population lacks access to modern medicine. Less than 10 percent have access to a hospital, and only 13 percent have access to a primary care center.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Solar Energy Brings Power to Rural India
In Central India, far from the grid of power lines, telephone poles and power transformers an electrical experiment has been taking place. For the last year, the village of Meerwada has been learning to live with solar energy. Located some 90 minutes from the nearest city by way of a rocky 4×4 dirt road, this small town sits on the cutting edge of a modern-day industrial revolution.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia
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The BIG Smallholder Opportunity: ‘Growing Business with Smallholders’ practitioner workshop is Nov. 19-20 in Germany
It’s clear that smallholders are important partners for improving food security when considering that, with 500 million farms worldwide, they cultivate most of the land in developing countries. To achieve food security, effective mechanisms to equip smallholders with the right inputs and tools.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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