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The Development Challenge You’re Overlooking: Seven Things You Need to Know About Land Rights
Approximately 72 percent of the world’s population – more than 4 billion people – live on property for which they do not hold formal rights. This presents obstacles to social cohesion, financial inclusion and economic growth – in fact, in many countries, landlessness is the best predictor of poverty. Yet the problem remains under-recognized in many global development discussions. Tim Rann, a partner at Mercy Corps’ Social Ventures team, lays out seven things you should know about the issue.
- Categories
- Environment
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City Possible: Mastercard Launches Global Network for Urban Co-Development
Sixteen cities are becoming founding members of the global City Possible network – representing a diverse mix of geography and size.
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Informal workers make up half the workforce of developing cities
In cities across the world, informal workers often lack access to protections and resources, but create as much as half a country’s GDP. Recognizing and supporting these workers will only help cities grow.
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A Business Accelerator Puts India’s Urban WASH Challenges Front and Center
India's cities are plagued by multiple water, sanitation and hygiene challenges, from inadequate drinking water to low sewerage network coverage. Private sector innovators and entrepreneurs are tackling these challenges with new technologies, products, services and business models. But their successes are inconsequential compared with the scale of the problem. Niyatee Goyal and Aditya Tejas at Ennovent discuss a USAID-supported platform that's addressing these problems on several fronts – including through a business accelerator.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Health Care, Technology, WASH
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Different Disasters, Same Solution? Applying New Orleans’ Post-Hurricane Model to Revive Detroit’s Neighborhoods
Hurricane Katrina's fury struck New Orleans over the course of hours while relentless economic stagnation plagued Detroit for decades. But these very different challenges created similar outcomes: huge population losses, real estate foreclosures and economic devastation. On Martin Luther King Day, NextBillion is focusing on domestic economic issues and urban renewal. Develop Detroit's Sean White explains how the real estate development firm is applying the Crescent City's formula for rebirth to the Motor City's ongoing neighborhood revival.
- Categories
- Investing
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African countries want to turn their poor, overcrowded urban centers into “smart cities”
Rwanda is on a campaign to transform its capital city of rolling hills and low-rise buildings into a so-called smart city where urban living has been optimized. Already, officials like to stress how much technology is part of daily life in Rwanda, from the president’s active Twitter presence to the fact that registering a marriage, death, or birth—things that would normally require multiple forms and trips to a government office—are increasingly done online.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- technology, urban planning
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Inside India’s Plans To Leapfrog The Western Model Of Car Ownership
If successful, the shift would save the country $60 billion in diesel and gas costs in 2030. Instead of 170 million cars, the number expected with the current trajectory, there would be 77 million. CO2 emissions from passenger transport would drop 37% compared to the business-as-usual scenario; energy use in passenger transport would drop 64%.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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