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‘Pilots Never Fail, Pilots Never Scale’: Why the Global Development Community Needs a More Realistic Approach to Reaching Billions
We live in an era that calls for large-scale social and environmental transformation – but our standard approaches aren't working. As Lennart Woltering at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center sees it, we need larger systems change. He shares a new paper that argues that agricultural development should stop focusing narrowly on making an impact through specific projects, and instead transform the underlying system so new technologies can be used by millions.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Rwanda Opens ‘First Entirely Homemade’ Smartphone Factory in Africa
The company is anticipating high demand for its products. Sebera says the factory has capacity to produce a "few million phones per year," which is expected to scale up as demand increases.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- manufacturing, scale
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An Impact Investing Model Designed for Africa: Why the Continent Should Embrace Search Funds
According to Brendan J. Mullen of Secha Capital, there's a little-known but perfectly suited investment model for Africa's emerging markets: search funds. Often vehicles for young, aspiring entrepreneurs to finance, acquire and grow established SMEs, search funds trust the local market by directing capital to where it’s most needed. As Secha launches a new $30 million fund, Mullen shares how investments in both growth and human capital are yielding impressive returns.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- impact investing, scale, startups
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What Rural Solar Energy Enterprises Can Learn from Mobisol’s Hard-Earned Lesson
Energy access pioneer Mobisol’s insolvency, announced last spring, sparked questions about the industry’s health. But according to Rob Goodier, managing editor at Engineering for Change, subsequent analyses suggest that many of the company's problems were internal, not a reflection of the industry as a whole. He explores what the rural energy sector can learn from Mobisol’s struggles, based on interviews with industry insiders and two people close to the company.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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‘You Hired me as a Ballerina and Now Want Me to be a Basketball Player’: Hard Truths About Evolving Talent at Scale
Does your talent strategy look the same as it did a year ago? If it does, you're probably doing it wrong – especially if your organization is scaling. According to Kimberly Langsam at CASE at Duke University, a growing organization's talent strategies and support infrastructure must constantly evolve. She explores why talent is one of the key challenges of scale, and shares insights from social entrepreneurs and others featured in a new report from the Scaling Pathways series.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Is Government the Key to Scaling up Graduation Programs? Results From an Impact Evaluation in Latin America
Graduation programs fight poverty by offering participants the tools and resources they need to create a viable livelihood. But while these programs have shown impressive results, they're costly to bring to scale. Tatiana Rincón and Adriana Insaurralde at Fundación Capital explore whether the graduation approach can be rolled out by governments without compromising its impact, based on evidence from a ground-breaking impact assessment.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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5 Ways Nonprofits Can Learn (and Copy) from For-Profits to Scale Up
Tough problems in tough places – that’s business as usual for many global nonprofits. As they navigate the challenges of high regulatory risk and ever-changing donor interest, nonprofits typically grow by acquiring more projects – based on how well they delivered previous projects. But businesses mostly fund their growth by reinvesting profits, or by raising external equity or debt. While these two systems are very different, there’s much nonprofits can learn from for-profit businesses as they reach for scale, writes Dhananjay Vaidyanathan Rohini at Alstonia Impact.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Designing for Social Good, Not ‘Feel Good’
Designing products for multinational corporations and their affluent target markets is very different from designing products for low-income, rural consumers. Jordan Westerberg, industrial designer with social venture development firm Factor[e], has worked in both of these worlds. He discusses a recent project that redesigned a solar conduction dryer for Indian farmers, and cautions against being drawn to simplistic, feel-good products when designing for social impact.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise, Technology
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