Livelihoods

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Youth Skills

Why financial inclusion for youth will raise all economic boats

Groups fighting for financial inclusion and youth employment united in Morocco. Will their findings promote progress?

African communities are becoming increasingly mobile-centric. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/70292973@N07/7192931934/">The Reboot (flickr)</a>

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Youth Skills

Windows to the world: Why Microsoft's $75 million mobile drop matters

Microsoft will spend $75 million to put tens of millions of smart devices into the hands of African youth by 2016, the company announced Monday.

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Youth Skills

Hilton's new hospitality: A jobs plan for global youth

Hilton Worldwide and the International Youth Foundation are combining forces to outline a strategy for creating 73 million youth jobs in the next 10 years.

Click the link above to scroll around the full infographic.

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Youth Skills

Infographic: 3 ways post-secondary schooling fails young workers

Global education has left many youth without the skills they need to secure jobs.

Like this farmer in Kenya, the challenge in Tanzania is connecting smallholder farmers to larger markets. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/5366702717/sizes/z/">CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture</a>

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Value Chains

How a Tanzania NGO scrapped grants to build markets that last

When it comes to solving poverty, sometimes the best way to get more done is to move out of the driver's seat.

SELCO Technician installing solar panels. Credit: SELCO

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Sustainable Energy

SELCO: A shining star in market-driven social enterprise

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor

In India, one iconoclastic solar company employs deep knowledge of the ways communities use energy to overthrow the traditional means of bringing power to the people.

Two Kenyan school boys play soccer. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/teachandlearn/2861273492/sizes/l/in/photostream/">Teachandlearn (Flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

UK retailer John Lewis is the latest to implemement a buy one, donate one program in Africa - with a twist

A small African company that got its seed money from a grant has just received a major endorsement. Alive & Kicking will now have their brand, Balls for Africa, sold by a major retailer in the UK.

Tienda owners in rural Guatemala stand proudly in front of their store, newly stocked with much-needed health products. Photo: Lindsay Murphy/Mercy Corps.

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Guatemala’s Tiendas de la Salud: Where profit and social impact meet

Mobile phones are one of the ways ADB says will increase microfinance availability among the poor. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/8048414699/">CIMMYT (flickr)</a>.

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Financial Inclusion

MFIs should offer more than just microfinance, study finds

Despite the surging popularity of microfinance in the last several decades, access among the poor in Asia and the Pacific remains low. A new report says technology and livelihood programs will put it in the hands of more people.

Women with small businesses who lost inventories can make up the loss with the Kore W loan product offered by MiCRO and Fonkoze. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle for Mercy Corps.

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Financial Inclusion

Hurricane Sandy triggers largest Haiti microinsurance payout to date

The reinsurance company Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO) will make a significant payout to the Haitian microfinance institution Fonkoze following Hurricane Sandy.

Left: Patricia Wolff, founder and executive director of Meds and Food for Kids. (Photo: MFK.) Right: Paul Farmer, founder and executive director of Partners in Health. (Photo: <a href="http://flic.kr/p/csKJu9">Nyaya Health, Flickr</a>.)

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Social Enterprise

Devil take the hindmost? Haiti peanut battle puts NGOs head to head

When antipoverty nonprofits compete, it's not always clear who will lose more: the one whose business is threatened, or the people both nonprofits set out to serve.

Vegetables at Market <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bioversity/6672475021/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Bioversity International (Flickr)</a>.

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Social Enterprise

You can't solve poverty by supplying products not in demand

Are humanitarian aid groups really demand-driven? Development economist James Riordan, says NGOs, government agencies and consulting firms, overwhelmingly, are not.

A new study shows that once farmers trust that index insurance will pay out as promised, they'll give up money to get it. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/5366709673/in/photostream/">CIAT (Flickr)</a>

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Financial Inclusion

Underdeveloped farm? This looks like a case for ... an insurance seller

A new study of farmers in northern Ghana found that given a choice between quick cash or index insurance coverage, they'll often opt for protection from risk.