Improving Smallholders Farmers’ Access to Fertilizers in Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa represents 10% of the total global population, yet cereal crop yields are only one-third as high as in developing Asia and one-tenth as high as in the United States. Because of such low agricultural productivity – the lowest in the world, the continent spends roughly US$35 billion a year on food imports. The […]
Once A Victim, Then A Survivor, Now an Entrepreneur
I often recount that when I started HERA France I incorrectly believed that I did not know a single woman around me who had been a victim of violence. Now I can firmly say I know many. And I am not speaking of the women who are enrolled in my program, but of the countless […]
Moving to the City
Every second, two people move into a city. Across the world, that’s a million people every week. Many are in search of a better life but, when they arrive, what they find is not what they were expecting. The world is driven by self-interest and nowhere is this more evident than in cities. Behaviour is […]
Design Expo Report 2014
Engaging the Private Sector in the Post-2015 Agenda
Philippe Scholtès and Tim Wall consider the new forms of partnership required to implement innovative business models that respond to commercial imperatives, while also delivering on the development front. In the last two decades, increasing economic growth rates in many developing countries have reshaped the global economy and opened up new opportunities for learning and […]
Easing the Economic Cost of Malaria – With a Vaccine
The interplay between health and economics is unavoidable, particularly when it comes to the impact of malaria on sub-Saharan Africa. Not only does malaria carry a heavy human cost, but it has a heavy economic burden too. Malaria claims around 600,000 lives a year, mostly young children in Africa. This is devastating for families and […]
Harnessing Scottish Business Innovation for Development
What a time to be in Glasgow. What a time to be Scottish. It was an overwhelming sense of pride that I felt during the recent Opening Ceremony of the 20th Commonwealth Games on one of the hottest days of the year. However there was one other equally strong emotion that I felt as I […]
The Direct Impact of Microfinance
Would you invest in a business if you knew it could make 210% net profit in less than 12 months? When staff at Friska, a small business based in Bristol, decided to provide a loan of £140 via Deki to Lydia Nyirongo in Malawi, they believed the loan would help Lydia change her life. What […]
SEED Africa Symposium
Take a Breather with a Quartet of Social Intrapreneurs
It all started with four hands on a piano. I met Melody McLaren, an Associate at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility in London, during a duet we improvised based on Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time”. OK, I doubt we would have rocked the charts with our recording, but our interests in jazz sparked off […]
The Universe Of Education Innovation And What’s Ahead?
One year ago, our team at the Center for Education Innovations (CEI) set out to increase our understanding of the universe of education innovations serving the poor around the world. We wanted to capture the scale, scope, and impact of promising programs, policies and practices, and share our findings as a public good, so that […]
Employee Volunteerism Ignites Social Innovation At GSK
Photo: Lisa Kenyon, PULSE Volunteer at AMREF- Kenya By Ahsiya Posner Mencin, Ph.D. Director, PULSE Volunteer Partnership How do you capture the fresh insights and ideas that about 100 high-performing GSK employees develop each year as a result of their PULSE assignments? This is a question that the PULSE Team and I have asked ourselves […]
Selling Sanitary Toilets To The Rural Poor
In our imperfect world, many people live in market systems that are broken – they don’t provide access to the basic things people need to live. iDE is a mechanic of broken markets. We try to look at every component of the market system to see how it can run better to benefit the individual. […]
Improving Healthcare Access in Developing Nations
Outside Kenya’s capital Nairobi lies the small farming town of Embu, which is filled with roadside stalls where farmers sell their mango, potato and rice crops. This remote region, nestled near the hills of Mount Kenya, is the setting for the second phase of the Familia Nawiri (Healthy Family) initiative, one example of a Novartis […]
Going The Extra Mile For Health
In the distant corners of Africa, entrepreneurs deliver goods and services across bumpy roads, crossing brimming rivers and rickety bridges, climbing steep hills and descending treacherous valleys. It is a classic story of conquering odds to reach the unreached. This story once inspired a potent question: If a company can deliver soft drinks to the […]
A Nation’s Coming Of Age: Malawi At 50
Last month was a very significant one for the country known as Africa’s ‘Warm Heart’. Fifty years on from the birth of Malawi’s independence, July provided a poignant moment to evaluate the progress that’s been made across the past five decades. But the anniversary is an equally important time to take stock of the challenges […]
Finding Finance For Infrastructure in Africa
Africa has a massive deficit in infrastructure, one that is holding back the social and economic growth in every country on the continent. The World Bank estimates that if African countries could catch up with South Korea’s stock of infrastructure economic growth could be increased by 2.6 percentage points, in many of the least developed […]
Seven Reasons To Be Optimistic About Africa
This piece originally appeared on the World Economic Forum’s blog. When I meet young Africans who have graduated from overseas universities, I am struck by their excitement for Africa. They have a vision for their countries of origin, and a passion to return to, and invest in, their homelands. This new desire for engagement is […]
Saving Lives at Birth
What does a garage mechanic from Argentina, a team of students from North Carolina, and a group of doctors in Kenya have in common? They are all pushing the boundaries of innovation to save the lives of women and newborns during their most vulnerable hours — from the time of labor to the 48 hours […]
Africa: The Time to Invest Is Now
The Africa of 20 years ago is not the Africa of today, and even the Africa of 10 years ago is barely recognizable. While much of the world stagnated in the last five years, the African continent experienced high economic growth and positive equity capital and trade flows. In truth, the future has never looked […]