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Business Development Fund, 450 Microfinance Institutions Partner to Ease Agriculture Financing in Rwanda
The issue of high rates and lack of collateral demanded by banks before they issue loans to farmers will soon be history thanks to a deal reached with 450 microfinance institutions, according to the Chief Executive Officer of the Business Development Fund, Innocent Bulindi.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Uncommon Cacao Raises Impact Investment Capital From Acumen, PI Investments
Uncommon Cacao, an industry-leading premium cacao supply chain operation, announced the closing of its Series A impact investment capital raise led by Pi Investments as lead investor and Acumen as the largest investor in the round.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
- Region
- Latin America
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Roundup: Jo Cox remembered, investors collaborate and Kenyan cabs
In this week's extensive Roundup, we remember Jo Cox, who was an extraordinary global health advocate; look at the leverage held by smallholder farmers; and wonder if Littlecabs will end up being a big headache for Uber in Kenya. Plus plenty more.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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UPDATED Weekly Roundup: Haiti’s Peanut Pushback, Moms Vs. Markets and Should Google’s Payday Ban Apply to Microfinance?
This week in the roundup we consider the pushback of Haitian farmers and NGOs against the U.S. government's mass peanut donation, how marketers might be undermining mothers who breastfeed, and whether Google's ban on ads from payday lenders could justifiably be applied to microfinance.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
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NexThought Monday: Our inaugural podcast – a conversation with the MasterCard Foundation’s Ann Miles
In April, the MasterCard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity awarded over $10 million to five innovative companies working to increase financial access in rural Africa. In NextBillion's inaugural podcast, we spoke to Ann Miles, Director of Financial Inclusion & Youth Livelihoods at the MasterCard Foundation, about the competition's winners and the broader digital financial inclusion space in Africa.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
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Weekly Roundup: Burning the Ivory to Save It
Late last week Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta helped set 105 tons of poached elephant ivory and rhino horns ablaze. It was a drastic step to help kill a black market where the horns and tusks would have fetched $100 million. This week we were reminded of other market building forces in Africa and Ecuador.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Investing
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One Acre Fund Expands Smallholder Farmer Services to Malawi and Uganda
One Acre Fund (http://www.OneAcreFund.org), a nonprofit agriculture organization that supplies smallholder farmers with the financing and training they need to increase their incomes and food security, today announced the official opening of its Malawi and Uganda operations. Malawi and Uganda began as pilots in 2013 and 2014 respectively. One Acre Fund now serves 400,000 smallholder farmers—with an estimated two million people in those households—across East and Southern Africa.
- Source
- Press Release
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The MasterCard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity Announces Winners of 2015 Scaling Competition and Launches 2016 Competition
The MasterCard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity today awarded five companies more than US$10.6 million to bolster their innovative work to alleviate poverty by increasing access to financial services for poor people in rural Africa. The five companies introduced imaginative thinking in their approach to scaling up financial inclusion – the increase in access to services such as mobile banking, savings accounts, insurance and credit – for the benefit of nearly eight million people in remote parts of Africa.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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