Global Ideas News Brief: Last mile design + Funding startups

A Guatemalan woman who received a microloan works in her home. Photo: Nathan Golon for Mercy Corps

The End of the 'Developing World'
NYT Op-Ed
If we want to understand the modern global economy, we need a better vocabulary; It’s time that we start describing the world as “fat” or “lean.”

Human-Centered Design and the Last Mile
Stanford Social Innovation Review
A collaborative approach to empowering community health workers drives innovation.

How The Biggest 10 Food And Beverage Companies Rank For Social Responsibility
Fast.Co.Exist
While corporations like Nestle and Coca-Cola are making important improvements in how they treat workers, communities, and the environment, no company is making hard choices in this race to the middle.

Food

Global Diets Get More Similar in Threat to Food Security: Study
NYT
Increasing similarity in diets worldwide is a threat to health and food security with many people forsaking traditional crops such as cassava, sorghum or millet, an international study showed on Monday.

Disaster Risk Reduction

Indonesia's volcanic eruptions expose need to prepare for disasters
Guardian
Poor preparedness left communities near Mount Sinabung more vulnerable than those hit by much larger Mount Kelud eruption.

Entrepreneurship

Making a Healthy Exit
Stanford Social Innovation Review
In places like rural Guatemala, the quest to sustain a vital social enterprise often depends on finding the right private-sector partner.

The Startup Accelerator That Wants Founders To Move To Africa
Fast.Co.Exist
With the continent's economy poised for rapid growth, 88mph is hoping to encourage the entrepreneurs of the "African diaspora" to return to their roots.

Funding a Startup is Getting Easier in the Middle East
WSJ Blog
The Middle East is awash with positive sentiment around startups, and a regular flow of accelerators, incubators and venture capital funds have been launching in recent months to the audible cheer of entrepreneurs. Takeaways from a recent Google hangout, including Chris Schroeder, the author of Startup Rising.

Tech

Smartphone Makers Aim at Emerging Markets With Low-End Devices
Wall Street Journal
Companies introduce phones with limited internet capability, some priced under $100.

Politics and policy

A World Without Consequences
Foreign Policy
Why Putin, Assad, and their ilk are making chaos the new normal.

Climate policy robs the world’s poor of their hopes
Financial Times
We need technologies that work in the US and in emerging markets.

Slum Dwellers in Caracas Ask, What Protests?
NYT
For all the upheaval in Venezuela, the disconnect between wealthier and poorer areas could seriously limit the impact of the protest movement, a weakness that some of its leaders seem keenly aware of.

Antigay Laws Gain Global Attention; Countering Them Remains Challenge
NYT
After Uganda criminalized homosexuality, the White House immediately warned that the law would “complicate” the country’s relationship with Washington, and the Netherlands and Norway cut off bits of development aid.

Philanthropy

The Re-Emerging Art of Funding Innovation
Stanford Social Innovation Review
As the strategic philanthropy movement has swept across the field, many grantmakers have lost their appetite for funding experimental and innovative projects. Recently, however, a number of funders have begun exploring how to deliberately reintroduce risk-taking into their processes and portfolios in search of breakthrough change.

The Compassion Gap
NYT Op-Ed
A Pew survey this year found that a majority of Republicans, and almost one-third of Democrats, believe that if a person is poor the main reason is “lack of effort on his or her part.” It’s true, of course, that the poor are sometimes lazy and irresponsible. So are the rich, with less consequence.

Interest

And the Nominees for Best Human-Rights Work ...
The Atlantic
The celebrities who have advanced—and harmed—the cause of freedom around the world.