Global Envision | The Confluence of Global Markets and Poverty Alleviation

Kenyan flower farmers are making more money thanks to a new middleman. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/2629345354/">Photo: World Bank (flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Your Walmart bouquet may have been grown by these Kenyan farmers

Flower growers in Kenya have plenty to sell, but no buyers. Meanwhile big-box retailers in the U.S. and UK want more flowers. New research reveals that a middleman connecting them could be profitable for both.

The structure of foreign aid is about to change. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/60881556@N05/5566653522/">Doctorwonder (Flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Dear traditional development assistance: The end is near

In a speech last week at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reminded development practitioners, politicos and philanthropists that their ultimate goal is to put themselves out of business.

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Financial Inclusion

Quotable: How every industry can grow and innovate

Opening the financial system to the world’s poorest people will unlock their economic and social potential – to the benefit of all.

If the world’s 2.5 billion unbanked join the global economy, every industry will experience innovation and growth.

A favorite pastime could be saving the world Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinbongart/3409828631/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Kevin Bongart (Flickr)</a>

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Youth Skills

Social Gaming 101: How digital fun is driving change

From world hunger to peace to economic development, a new tool is making a difference: video games.

One of Steve's first stints with Mercy Corps was in the steppe of Mongolia. Photo: Paul Dudley Hart/Mercy Corps

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Social Enterprise

Development failures, "project to enterprise" and shared value: A Q&A with Mercy Corps' new social innovations head

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A cash-lite society means hefty benefits for the poor

In an article on the HuffingtonPost today, Elisabeth Rhyne, managing director at the Center for Financial Inclusion, explains that a cashless society is crucial for the poor, but argues that it's

In India, the more important debate over Walmart may not be about whether it sells to the poor but whether it buys from them. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37936363@N00/2206316223/">Bobinson K B (Flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Poor Indians won't shop at Walmart - but will Walmart shop from them?

India's leaders say farmers will win big from last week's opening of the nation's retail market to multinationals.

A young women working the fields in Egypt Photo: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfamnovib/6257022866/sizes/m/in/photostream/”> oxfamnovib (Flickr)</a>.

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Financial Inclusion

A small step for science, a giant leap for unemployed youth

As the youth unemployment rate closes in on 25 percent in the Middle East, young people are looking for jobs, and governments are looking for innovative ways to create them.

Satellites orbiting the Earth may turn out to be much cheaper than either insurance adjusters or local weather stations. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasaearthobservatory/7420745884/in/photostream/">NASA Earth Observatory</a>

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Financial Inclusion

Satellite maps of African weather promise a microinsurance breakthrough

High above Africa, a fleet of satellites are now staring like hawks at the continent's weather patterns. Their goal: cheap farm insurance.

<a href="http://betterthancash.org/">The Better Than Cash Alliance</a>

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Mobile Technology

Quotable: Cash isn't king

Of the 2.6 billion people who live on less than US$2 per day, 90 percent lack access to formal financial services.

- The Better Than Cash Alliance.

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A closer look at India's new health microinsurance scheme

As mentioned in last week's post, India set out four years ago to achieve universal health coverage for poor families using a massive system of state-subsidized private microinsurance.

Chickpea farmers in Addis Ababa could check weather, price and demand information using a proposed new mobile information service. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/30450178@N07/7179539743/in/photostream/">abossuet (Flickr)</a>

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Mobile Technology

Mobile farming information service prepares to launch in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is home to the latest program that will deliver business information to poor farmers using solar-powered mobile phones.

A Malawian farmer in her groundnut plot. Photo: <ahref:http://www.flickr.com/photos/44760652@N05/7337617292/">CIMMYT (Flickr)</a>.

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Value Chains

Farm growth fights poverty twice as fast as other growth

The most equitable way a country can stimulate a post-conflict economy is to invest in agriculture, an African nonprofit says.

As an insurance holder, she knows the next big storm won't wipe out all her assets. Photo: Fabiola Coupet/Mercy Corps

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Inside microinsurance, a view from Haiti

As Tropical Storm Isaac hit Haiti in late August, all eyes were watching to see whether the country would be overwhelmed by the latest storm.

India is subsidizing more than 100 million small-value insurance policies in an effort to help people treat health problems without falling into poverty. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nadya/4789818776/in/photostream/">Nadya Peek(flickr)</a>

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Financial Inclusion

India: Knocking the poor back on their feet with microinsurance

Hospitalization can save a life--at the cost, sometimes, of throwing it permanently off track. Two very different countries, India and the United States, recently chose a similar solution: subsidized insurance.