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Sokowatch Raises $14M to Digitize Africa’s Informal B2B Supply-Chain
Informal retail is still king in Africa — even with the emergence of shopping malls and well-funded e-commerce ventures, such as Jumia.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- e-commerce, startups, supply chains
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Saving Your Coffee and Avocado Toast: How Strategic Partnerships Can Build Smallholders’ Resilience to Climate Change
The climate crisis has spawned a new internet trend, as headlines like “America’s Favorite Fruit Could Go Extinct” spark panic in readers. And it’s true that the warming climate could affect the future supply of produce and other foods – but it's creating even more drastic problems for smallholder farmers. Camila Kauer Garcia at Fintrac explores initiatives that are helping farmers become more resilient to climate change, allowing consumers to confidently enjoy their favorite foods.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
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Press Release: EcoVadis Secures c. $200M Investment from CVC Growth Partners to Accelerate Adoption of Sustainability Ratings Throughout the Globalised Economy
This transaction represents one of the largest investments in the ESG space to date and reflects a shared long-term vision for the importance of ESG to business success. EcoVadis will leverage the funding to scale globally and ingrain sustainability, fair labour practices and ethics into enterprise supply chains and business commerce.
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What Will Last Mile Distribution Look Like in 2025? Six Predictions for an Emerging Sector
From water purifiers to solar lights, the impact-oriented products can’t further development goals if they can't make it to last mile customers. Emma Colenbrader and Charlie Miller of the Global Distributors Collective explain how the organization's 140 member distributors have defied tough odds to get 13 million products and counting into the hands of last mile households. They share a first-of-its-kind report that aims to better understand the markets for these products, the customers being reached – and the business models that can reach them.
- Categories
- Energy, Telecommunications, Transportation
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Kenya’s Twiga Foods Eyes West Africa After $30M Raise Led by Goldman
Twiga will use the funds to set up a distribution center in Nairobi and deepen its conversion to offering supply chain services for both agricultural and FMCG products.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- supply chains
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The Development Tool Nobody’s Using: Why it’s Time for the Women’s Empowerment Sector to Leverage Media and Advertising
In women’s economic empowerment circles, there’s no shortage of initiatives involving corporate partnerships with NGOs - often focused on agriculture or garment supply chains. But as Mara Bolis at Oxfam points out, this focus has led the sector to overlook other potential areas of impact – including media and advertising. Sharing some compelling examples, she argues that media could have as much – or even more – influence in shaping women’s economic opportunities as changes to global value chains.
- Categories
- Technology
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The Next Big Thing for Energy Access in India? Service-Based Models for Productive-Use Appliances in Agriculture
The global off-grid solar industry has grown exponentially, driven largely by sales or leasing of small appliances enabled by the pay-as-you-go business model. But according to Lanvin Concessao at Oorja Development Solutions, the market is now shifting towards larger income-generating appliances used in small businesses and farms. He explores the impact these appliances can have in India, and how they can drive the irrigation and cold storage sectors' transition to solar energy.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy
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Consortium Releases Technology-Enabled Sustainable Supply Chain Finance Model
The aim of the model is to drive more transparency in global supply chains and encourage sustainable production processes through supply chain finance.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology