entrepreneurship

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Social Enterprise

The Middle East and North Africa’s youth wave: Addressing social issues through business

While the Middle East and North Africa struggle with the highest youth unemployment rates in the world, youth are also using their skills to create small businesses that address the social issues plaguing the region.

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Global Ideas News Brief: Financing coffee + The Pope's capitalism commentary

Financing coffee, developing countries' thirst for energy and the Pope's capitalism. Staff Picks: What we're reading this week.

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Financial Inclusion

Faith and Finance: The director of "Kompanion Invest" discusses the challenges of mixing business and religion

In Kyrgyzstan, over 85 percent of citizens are followers of Islam, and many seek to run Halal businesses. So offering Shari’a compliant financial services just makes sense. Easier said than done. Read this frank Q&A with the country's only Islamic microfinance institution.

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Social Enterprise

Shopping for all: Mobile technology as social enterprise

Many social enterprises are incorporating mobile technology into their businesses, making products more accessible to consumers around the world.

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Social Enterprise

Philippines post Super Typhoon Haiyan: How small business boosts economies after natural disasters

After a natural disaster, social enterprises can help rebuild economies by stimulating entrepreneurial activity.

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Twitter and international development: Who to follow and why

Here's a list of three interesting users to follow for each of Global Envision’s six beats.

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Value Chains

Partnering with the poor: 4 powerful programs fighting poverty

Over the past decade, aid organizations have moved from handouts and giveaways to making markets work for, and by, the poor. Here's four groups leading the charge.

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Mercy Corps mobilizes emergency response team to Philippines

Mercy Corps is mobilizing a team of emergency responders, including experts in water, sanitation and logistics, into the areas devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan.

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Social Enterprise

EcoZoom: A Three Part Model For Doing Business in Africa

EcoZoom is bringing safer, cleaner cookstoves to relief, development, and commercial markets in Somalia, Rwanda, and Kenya.

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Social Enterprise

Social investment takes the stage: Five forums you should know about

Several social investment forums brought social investment into the mainstream and helped create and finance social investment and enterprise projects to improve human and environmental well-being and make a financial return.

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Social Enterprise

New initiative announced at Clinton Global helps small businesses in Indonesia grow online

Choky fears his small handbag store will soon be eclipsed by others he sees online. Soon he'll access web-based business services to grow his business and compete through a for-profit social enterprise created by Mercy Corps, eBay Foundation and ThoughtWorks.

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Social Enterprise

Growing economies by planting startup culture seeds

Startup cultures are beginning to bloom in unstable markets, where business innovation--instead of charity--is rebuilding the economy.

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Financial Inclusion

Microfinance in the crosshairs: Will Kyrgyzstan's usury bill backfire?

Microfinance has become a subject of controversy, as predatory lenders and unfair interest rates have tarnished its image and led to government interventions. But in Kyrgyzstan, a country with little financial regulation and no sovereign credit rating, increasing regulations may soon have negative consequences for the very clients they're intended to protect.

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Mobile Technology

Tools for tweets: How to stop harassment with online mapping

A nonprofit startup is trying to stop the pervasive harassment of women in Egypt using a revolutionary tool--the Internet.

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Financial Inclusion

Econ 101: Three different ways to lift girls out of poverty

New projects that teach young women how to start a business, hold a bank account, and apply for financial aid can help to give them better futures out of the hallmarks of poverty -- poor health care, forced marriage, and early childbirth.