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Good Food, Good Business: How African ‘Superfoods’ Can Boost Women Entrepreneurs and Their Communities
Africa has one of the largest youth populations in the world – and it's projected to double by 2055. To support this young generation of tomorrow, we need to invest in their mothers today, says Oumar Barou Togola, the founder of Farafena Health Inc. He explores how Farafena is partnering with women farmers in Mali and Malawi, helping them start micro-businesses that bring nutrient-rich African "superfoods" to North American markets.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Matt Damon is on a Mission to End the Global Water Crisis
The water and sanitation crisis affects billions of people worldwide, and creates an impasse for economic growth in impoverished areas as people—primarily women and school-age children—spend hours each day scavenging for and collecting clean water. One in three people on earth lack access to a toilet, one of the more jarring statistics provided on Water.org’s website.
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Tackling the water crisis will be just as hard as it sounds
More than 2 billion people around the world lack what the UN considers “safely managed drinking water supplies,” and millions of people across the United States—as much as a quarter of the country, by some estimates—drink water contaminated beyond legal levels.
- Categories
- Environment, WASH
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Adapt or Die: Accelerating Growth Amid a Rapidly Changing Energy Landscape
The clean cooking sector has made incredible strides in the past decade, with bilateral organizations and the development community working together to create standardized environmental impact goals. Now the industry is facing a new set of scaling challenges, say Jessica Alderman and Ron Bills of Envirofit International. The two share advice for enterprises seeking to level up, including how to avoid mission creep.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Unpacking NextBillion’s Reader Survey: What the Responses Show – And How They’ll Shape Our Coverage
You likely noticed that NextBillion has been conducting a reader survey over the past few months. But you may not have noticed that the survey recently concluded. In the spirit of transparency – and because we find the results interesting – we’ve compiled some highlights from the 500+ responses. We also share our initial reactions to this reader feedback, and discuss how this survey data might impact new editorial directions on the site.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Businesses ‘doing good’? Prove it
“It is a bit of a dark art, measuring impact,” Jessi Baker, founder and chief executive of Provenance, a British social enterprise that uses blockchain technology to make supply chains more transparent, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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Press release: Innovation Works and Miller Center form partnership to create 250 social enterprises, 5,000 jobs in Baltimore
IW was formed to support Baltimore’s entrepreneurship development as a path to creating sustainable jobs, increasing average household incomes, and building neighborhood economies in underinvested communities. Miller Center, as the largest and most effective university-based social enterprise accelerator in the world, brings best practices and experience to the initiative.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- North America
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Don’t overlook Africa’s ‘fragile’ states for social businesses, urge industry experts
“Of course you have to do things differently in fragile states compared to other countries, but it is possible to see your businesses grow,” said Fiona Lukwago from the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), an impact investment fund.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa