Microfinance, Innovations, Sustainable Development

Rural Women Banking By Mobile Phone

2011-11-15T16:31:19.828-07:00

Collecting the monthly subscriptions for her co-operative has always been a headache for Thelma Nare, 41. This is because Nare lives in Tshitshi, Plumtree in rural Zimbabwe, about 60 kilometres away from the humdrum of the nearest town centre where banks are located.

"We meet after a long time as here in the rural areas our homesteads can be very far from each other. So members of our club do not meet or contribute regularly," Nare said.

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7 Strategies for Mobile Banking

2011-11-08T16:24:31.25-07:00

Is mobile banking worth chasing?
That’s a key question facing bankers these days, given the cost of establishing a mobile offering and the accelerated pace at which the mobile landscape is evolving.
The short answer is “yes”—if you go about it right.

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Two Young University Of Washington Graduates Launch An Innovative New Type Of Microlending Company Called Lumana Helping E

2011-11-04T13:18:16.217-07:00

Two young University of Washington graduates launch an innovative new type of micro-lending company called Lumana, helping entrepreneurs in rural Africa to create sustainable businesses.

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Should We Be Focused on Rural Areas in the Developing World?

2011-11-01T12:58:07.81-07:00

Microfinance has largely become a city-based endeavor, but one example suggests it would be more useful if focused on rural communities. Microfinance -- the practice of personal small loans to spur creativity in developing nations -- has well-known rural roots.

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The microfinance catalyst

2011-10-20T10:54:06.871-07:00

So-called “impact investors” -- providers of capital to businesses that solve social challenges while generating a profit -- are the current rage in economic development.
US President Barack Obama’s Office for Social Innovation and Civic Participation recently convened more than 100 practitioners to discuss how impact investing could be unleashed in the United States and the developing world.

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A Small Innovation Leads to the Next Big Thing

2011-10-18T11:07:17.433-07:00

Meet ChotuKool. A refrigerator with no compressor, it is tiny, weighing in at less than 18 pounds. It can run on a 12-volt battery and can be yours for about $75. Most importantly, you can get it in some of the most hard-to-reach rural areas of India. “Chotu” means “the small one” in colloquial Hindi. It may well be the Next Big Small Thing.

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World Food Day Is Not a Time for Celebration, But a Time For Action

2011-10-14T13:50:59.869-07:00

Famine is not simply caused by a lack of food in the global supply. We must -- and can -- do better.

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ONE Launches Effort to End Famine

2011-10-13T13:43:42.403-07:00

"ONE is about justice, not charity," he says. "It's about the shared value of every human life. That's why we're here -- to bring this to people's attention and to do something about it. …Your voice together with mine together with millions of others makes a big difference."
Advocacy group ONE is gaining support for its efforts to end the critical famine in Somalia with its new PSA effort, "The F Word: Famine Is the Real Obscenity." The PSAs, which debuted last week online and on TV, have already inspired more than 200,000 people worldwide to sign the organization's petition to end famine.

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Opinions: How can higher education institutions become more sustainable

2011-10-12T13:10:39.119-07:00

From changes to the curriculum to getting Transitional University status or by making the financial case for energy savings, we share the best bits from some experts' sustainability live chat

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Facing droughts, Pacific islands need urgent risk mitigation steps, UN warns

2011-10-10T13:28:18.112-07:00

Amid growing concerns about drought crises in some small island States of the Pacific, the United Nations today called for comprehensive risk reduction steps to be put in place to protect vulnerable populations living in delicate ecosystems.

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UK - Africa: Radio 4 Appeal for Microloan Foundation

2011-10-09T04:16:07.35-07:00

Gabby Logan presents the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the MicroLoan Foundation. The MicroLoan Foundation is a specialist ‘not for profit’ UK microfinance charity that provides microfinance (small loans of on average £70), business education and ongoing mentoring support to impoverished women in sub-Saharan Africa. This provides them with a “hand-up not a hand-out” so they can develop self-sustainable livelihoods for themselves and their families, and work their own way out of poverty. 99% of the loans are repaid and then recycled in full to help more women year after year.

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Bangladesh : Mobile banking takes shape

2011-10-03T06:06:12.459-07:00

Mobile phone use in Bangladesh is not a luxury now. Almost half of the country's 160 million population uses mobile phones, but very few have bank accounts. There were lot of talks in the past few years on how the big population could be brought under the banking services via their mobile handsets. The GSM Association (GSMA) predicts that by 2012, nearly 300 million of the previously "unbanked" will be using some form of mobile banking.

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Grameen Foundation and USAID Providing $3 Million for Peruvian Microfinance Institutions

2011-10-02T05:45:19.506-07:00

Grameen Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) today announced that they are jointly providing a $1.5 million credit guarantee to the Peruvian savings and credit cooperative Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito (ABACO) to support approximately $3 million for local currency financing to two socially-focused Peruvian microfinance institutions (MFIs). Peru has an established microfinance sector, with mature institutions having relatively easy access to international capital markets. However, there continues to be a great need for local currency financing, especially among smaller microfinance institutions, which traditionally have not been eligible for loans from local banks.

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Predicting the Path Out of Poverty: Microfinance & Credit Risk Analysis

2011-10-01T05:19:11.839-07:00

“Do microloans work?” strikes Lilian Simbaqueba as an odd question. If they’re administered properly, they should. That’s what her company, LiSim, is in the businesses of doing. Started in 1996, LiSim is a risk-analysis company based in Bogota, Colombia that uses statistics and behavioral analysis to determine the inherent risk in granting credit to a given client. It offers outsourcing services to clients interested in developing credit scoring systems as well as selling software for a client to use in-house.

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SHE: Scharpf's simple way to empower women

2011-09-30T12:16:17.642-07:00

While interning in Africa in 2005, Elizabeth Scharpf was appalled to find that women were missing work and school because they couldn’t afford pads to wear during their periods. “I felt like it was an obstacle for women and girls — to their freedom” and one that shouldn’t exist, she said.

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Bangladesh : Mobile banking takes shape

2011-09-28T06:07:50.005-07:00

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Wangari Maathai

2011-09-26T12:15:32.026-07:00

. The first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, environmentalist Wangari Maathai, has died aged-71 in Nairobi after a long battle with cancer. Matthai became a key figure in Kenya after founding her Green Belt Movement in 1997 which campaigned for environmental conservation and good governance. In recent years, Maathai founded green groups and launched several campaigns against climate change and for environmental protection. Her organization planted some 40 million trees across Africa.

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Cultivating Knowledge and Crops: Women Are Key to Sustainable Agricultural Development

2011-09-26T11:42:42.699-07:00

Women account for 75 percent of the agricultural producers in sub-Saharan Africa, but the majority of women farmers are living on only $1.25 per day, according to researchers from the Worldwatch Institute. Despite the challenging circumstances that women in developing countries face, important innovations in communications and organizing are helping women play a key role in the fight against hunger and poverty. "Access to credit, which provides women farmers with productive inputs and improved technologies, can be an effective tool in improving livelihoods in Africa and beyond," said Worldwatch Institute's executive director Robert Engelman.

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Nigeria: Revised Policy Fails to Excite MFBs Operators

2011-09-22T14:25:10.604-07:00

Operators of Microfinance Banks (MFBs) appeared unimpressed with the revised supervisory and regulatory framework for micro-finance banks (MFBs) approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last week.

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G20 faces obstacles in its efforts to spread good farming practices

2011-09-19T11:56:49.117-07:00

A lack of coherence among agricultural research bodies hinders the G20's goal of promoting farming in the developing world. Spreading good ideas and practices in farming sounds like a simple enough goal, but can be immensely complicated not just on a global level but also locally.

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Britain must think bigger

2011-09-11T12:11:10.539-07:00

Investment in innovation is needed to secure the UK's future, which is why we are launching the Big Innovation Centre

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A “theory of evolution” for technology

2011-09-10T12:03:34.982-07:00

It is time for the academic community to come to the aid of an old and ailing friend — the “science” of technological knowledge. In other words, rather than relying on individual fields of study to come up with new bits of “technology”), we must study technological advancement as a process itself, across disciplines. The time is right; recent advances in the management of technology have laid the necessary groundwork to do so.

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China: Tianjin puts priority on innovation

2011-09-09T11:53:56.536-07:00

The coastal city of Tianjin, with its hundred-year history of industrial development, is now looking to transform its development structure - from energy- and resource-intensive to sustainable, high-tech and innovative.

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Interview: Lynne Maher, the director of innovation and design at the NHS National Innovation Centre

2011-09-08T11:41:51.561-07:00

Lynne Maher can see the NHS entering a new phase in its development of IT. National programmes are becoming less of an issue, and there will be a stronger emphasis on new ideas coming from the ground up.

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Book: Reinventing economics

2011-09-06T12:04:49.877-07:00

Economic analysis is about understanding the workings of the economic system. Many elegant economic theories exist to analyse wealth-creating productive activities. Conventional economic theory focuses on a one-dimensional world.

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Microfinance: What role in Africa's development?

2011-09-01T05:43:30.74-07:00

The honeymoon with microfinance is over. Since the idea of lending or giving very small sums of money to poor people was introduced to the world by the pioneering Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, the approach has been taken up by many non-governmental organizations, donor agencies and the United Nations as an essential part of their poverty-reduction efforts. Microfinance has provided countless people with access to financial services.

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Dr. Sabine O'Hara Recognized by Cambridge Who's Who

2011-08-29T11:43:16.065-07:00

Dr. Sabine O'Hara, Owner and Principal of Global Ecology LLC, has been recognized by Cambridge Who's Who for showing dedication, leadership and excellence in international business education and sustainable development.

Dr. O'Hara is principal of Global Ecology LLC, and managing director and vice president of Professors Beyond Borders. Global Ecology positions higher education institutions and private, public and non-profit sector organizations for success by providing educational tools and planning and assessment services for negotiating a complex world and marketplace.

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West Bengal: World Bank to plan conservation and development of Sunderbans

2011-08-28T11:54:45.51-07:00

The World Bank has taken up a mega-project, touted to be the first of its kind, for conserving the rich biodiversity and boosting socio-economic development of the Sundarbans area in West Bengal. "This has been done according to the recommendation of the Planning Commission of India and (the project) is expected to be complete at the end of this year," state's Sundarbans Affairs Minister Shyamal Mondal said.

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Cultivating Knowledge and Crops: Women Are Key to Sustainable Agricultural Development

2011-08-17T13:13:18.432-07:00

This weblog is sponsored by Avgo.org and Photo Cyprus.

Competition Spurs Access to Banking And Innovation

2011-08-16T12:13:14.586-07:00

Competition among financial institutions is intensifying in Africa as more governments relax barriers to entry and open their countries' banking sectors to new players. The flurry of fresh entrants in some countries is credited with helping to drive down banking charges, improve access to banking services and spark off a wave of new products and services.

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A scientist takes business education to the poor

2011-08-01T12:07:50.809-07:00

When a scientist has to run a micro-finance firm, a different approach is inevitable. That was precisely what happened when Dr Tara Thiagarajan, Chairperson, Madura Micro Finance Ltd, a neuroscientist by profession, was called upon to take over her late father's micro-finance business. Thrust into this new role, she suddenly had to grapple with a network of almost 20,000 self-help groups in Tamil Nadu. By and by, she discovered that they were going nowhere in particular, despite the micro loans. These were at best helping them to maintain their subsistence levels.

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Kredits Introduces Microfinance Industry’s First Regulatory Compliance Software Solution

2011-07-26T19:06:18.555-07:00

Kredits, a leading provider of software and technology solutions for microfinance institutions (“MFIs”), announced it has entered into bilateral agreements with MFI clients and regulators across multiple regions in order to provide the microfinance industry’s first multi-jurisdictional regulatory compliance software solution. In response to a rapidly evolving regulatory climate, Kredits is proactively meeting the challenge by providing its worldwide base of MFI clients with the advanced reporting and credit bureau support required to cost-effectively maintain regulatory compliance.

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Temenos T24 Launches Cloud Strategy for the Global Microfinance Community With Windows Azure

2011-07-13T19:00:12.187-07:00

Today at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles, Temenos, the global provider of banking software, launched a complementary go-to-market model using Microsoft technologies to address affordable access to finance in emerging markets. Temenos was also today selected the Microsoft Financial Services Partner of the Year at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

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Can software giant SAP survive the IT revolution?

2011-05-01T14:06:28.069-07:00

SAP is one of the world's most important but least known software companies - so can it adapt to the IT revolution at the start of the 21st century?

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Visa Europe Releases Mobile Acceptance Security Best Practices

2011-04-28T13:53:41.934-07:00

Visa Europe in cooperation with Visa Inc. today issued a set of mobile acceptance security best practices for software and hardware providers, retailers and their acquirers. These best practices form part of Visa Europe’s ongoing strategy to advance security measures to help protect cardholder and account data when using consumer mobile devices such as smart phones to facilitate the acceptance of card payments.

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Sprint Plans Tap-And-Go Payments in 2011, Ahead of Rivals

2011-04-04T13:10:30.517-07:00

Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to start a service this year that will allow customers to make purchases with their mobile phones, ahead of a similar initiative from rivals Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA.

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Color Looks To Reinvent Social Interaction

2011-04-02T00:12:26.064-07:00

A revolutionary new communication app has been launched for the iPhone and Android platforms, which automatically shares photos, videos and text with anyone in the vicinity who also has the application. The app, called Color, has been created by Bill Nguyen, who sold his cloud based music locker Lala.com to Apple for $80 million. The app works by using a mix of GPS location data and ambient sensors to assess proximity of other users, who will be able to see any text, videos or photos taken via Color. The application comes with absolutely no privacy settings, so all the photos shared are publicly available to every member within the range. There is also no need to 'friend' anyone, though a blocking option is available.

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The Sun: Gorillas get iPads

2011-03-31T22:54:00.141-07:00

The Sun is reporting that animal behavior experts have kindly handed out iPads to Gorillas. Amazingly not a SINGLE one of the five tablets which download apps has been broken since being given out at Port Lympne wild animal park three weeks ago.

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The World's Most Ethical Companies

2011-03-31T13:14:22.936-07:00

The Ethisphere Institute, a New York City think tank, has just announced its fifth annual list of the World's Most Ethical Companies. The selection, open to every company in every industry around the globe, gives its winners an opportunity to trumpet their do-gooding ways. It is not a ranking, so they are all equally winners.

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LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s 10 rules of entrepreneurship

2011-03-30T13:37:51.958-07:00

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman gave a speech today about how entrepreneurs can “invent the future”. Speaking at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, he recited a list of 10 rules of entrepreneurship.

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How Groupon Uses the Cloud to Scale Its Business

2011-03-28T23:41:27.935-07:00

Since launching in late 2008, deal-of-the-day website Groupon has emerged as one of the hottest web startups on the planet. Serving more than 250 markets worldwide and boasting more than 35 million users, Groupon is the poster child for a rapidly growing company. One of the reasons Groupon has continued to succeed and expand over the past two and a half years is because the company has managed to keep the pace with its business. Tracking deal performance across locations and business types is an important part of Groupon’s business. Groupon uses a number of different tracking solutions so that it can generate internal reports, as well as offer reports to business owners.

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VeriFone On Apple, Google And PayPal’s NFC Competitiveness

2011-03-28T13:20:44.81-07:00

Electronic payment provider VeriFone has a front seat for what it calls the “gold rush for NFC” – the race to deliver products and services related to Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

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Why Women Rule The Internet

2011-03-25T23:18:24.959-07:00

Do you have women in key positions? If you’re planning on targeting female customers, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to have great women on your team. Women are the routers and amplifiers of the social web. And they are the rocket fuel of ecommerce. The ongoing debate about women in tech has been missing a key insight. If you figure out how to harness the power of female customers, you can rock the world.

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Ageing populations will drive domestic robot innovation

2011-03-25T12:13:26.521-07:00

The ageing global population will be what will drive market for sophisticated domestic robots, which have hitherto been lacking, according to the founder of Microsoft's robotics division. Tandy Trower has a vision to design a socially assistive robot to help the elderly or infirm.

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Uganda: Bicycles at the Heart of Empowerment Scheme for Rural Women

2011-03-24T12:31:09.582-07:00

The bicycle has become a symbol of hope for hundreds of women in Uganda who have been trained in repairing one of life’s favorite transport modes. More than two hundred women from around the Bwindi National Park, in the country's southwest, have been taking part in a two-week course on bicycle repair, organised by the group Ride 4 a Woman.

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Microfinance Is Much More Than Just Credit

2011-03-23T11:46:08.641-07:00

A day after U.S. assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs Robert Blake appealed to the Bangladeshi government to reconsider its dismissal of 70-year-old microfinance guru Muhammad Yunus from the Grameen Bank, IPS spoke with the president and CEO of Women's World Banking (WWB), currently the most comprehensive network of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the world. She dismissed the notion, which is swiftly gaining momentum in many quarters, that microcredit is ineffective as a sustainable method of poverty alleviation and must be replaced.

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Microfinance USA: Conference 2011

2011-03-21T15:43:45.294-07:00

Microfinance USA is the conference where the nation's leading microfinance champions exchange ideas and information that set the agenda for the future of the field. Join the conversation with expert practitioners, top investors, and frontline researchers to explore and expand microfinance in the U.S.

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Archives: in Microfinance Replicating Best Practices Is not Enough

2011-03-20T15:17:27.101-07:00

The wisdom in development finance has long been that lending to and saving by poor micro-entrepreneurs and farmers is doomed to failure: costs are too high, the poor are not creditworthy and they are not able to save and insure, and so on. Bold experimentation with new institutions in microfinance, supported by public action, have resulted in a number of success stories and changed this pessimistic assessment during the past fifteen years or so. In this paper, a number of arguments are put forward that call for a continuation of the support towards institutional innovation and bottom-up adaptation of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in developing countries. Published in 2001 by Manfred Zeller

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The ancestor of modern programming languages: ALGOL

2011-03-19T14:46:39.879-07:00

Understanding modern programming languages is much easier when you know about the languages that influenced their design. David Chisnall looks at some languages that have shaped the modern computing landscape. The series begins by examining ALGOL, the language that launched the structured programming revolution.

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How to Open a New Online Bank Account

2011-03-18T14:52:25.046-07:00

Diversifying your bank accounts can allow you to keep funds for one investment or project in one account, while keeping another for bills and entertainment expenses. An online bank account allows you to transfer funds without having to enter a bank and often can give you competitive interest rates. These accounts also allow you to view and manage you accounts online. Opening an online bank account is a simple procedure.

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Web creator to help protect ‘open internet’

2011-03-17T15:28:02.079-07:00

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, has been asked by ministers to work with broadband companies on guidelines to protect the “open internet”.

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