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Our staff scans hundreds of news sources every day to create a custom newsfeed. When the mainstream media covers the development through enterprise space, you can expect to find it here
JMD Abangan
TAGUM CITY (30 November) -- The women sector has indeed become a significant force to reckon with as a fuel to the local economy and as backbone to prop up household income.
Financial Times Launches Annual Sustainable Banking Awards.
The Financial
Times reports (11/24) it announced on Wednesday the launch of the first
global awards dedicated to recognizing banks that have actively integrated
social and environmental objectives into their operations, while still
maximizing financial gain for their shareholders.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said rural finance was playing a critical role in the improvement of agricultural productivity, through the provision of credit for small holder farmers.
In his opening address at a Worldwide Congress on Agricultural and Rural Finance here at the UN Conference Centre yesterday, Prime Minister Meles said, currently more than 2.5 million farmers, accounting for 25 percent of the total smallholder agriculture obtain credit annually for the purchase of inputs, mainly fertilizers.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government are meeting this weekend in Malta. One of the issues they will be discussing is how to bridge the so-called digital divide - the gap between those in the industrialised world who have access to information technology, and those in the developing world who do not.
Mobile phones are seen as key in countries with poor landline networks, but the question is how to get them into the hands of the poor. One pioneering scheme in Bangladesh has become famous for its "telephone ladies".
Sub-Saharan Africa
ST. JUDE Family Projects is training farmers in modern Integrated Organic Farming (IOF). For the past 12 years, the project has equipped more than 180,000 farmers with skills in IOF.
Integrated Organic Farming is a process of harmonious co-existence between the various components on a farm - plants, animals, water and soils. Each component contributes directly or indirectly to the other.
Bojonegoro --- Suhar, 28, a peanut farmer likes to show off the new cell phone he bought two months ago. He could afford to buy the cell phone after he reaped significant profit from his peanut farm using a management and production method based on knowledge Suhar obtained from the Internet.
Suhar said his profit had been soaring since he adopted new production techniques and management principles he acquired from an information technology training held by PT Microsoft Indonesia last year. "This cell phone is evidence that the information technology has helped me acquire more profit. My net revenue was Rp 400,000 before I adopted the new management and production techniques, but now it is Rp 4 million a month," said Suhar.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Malawi has introduced an innovative pilot drought insurance program for local groundnut farmers that will help them mitigate the risks associated with periodic droughts. The insurance will help farmers obtain financing necessary to obtain certified seeds, which produce increased yields and revenues as well as greater resistance to disease. The program is currently being utilized through the pilot program by nearly 900 farmers in four areas and, if successful, can be scaled up to other crops and other areas of Malawi and Africa.
The National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi, in conjunction with the Insurance Association of Malawi and with technical assistance from the World Bank and Opportunity International Network financed by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, designed the index-based weather insurance contract that would pay out if the rainfall needed for groundnut production was insufficient. If there is a drought that triggers a pay out from the insurance contract, funds will be paid directly to the bank to pay off the farmers' loans. If there is no drought, the farmers will benefit from selling the higher value production in the marketplace.
Access to mobile phones is rocketing, along with its impact on poverty, writes Matthew Bishop.
When you get a mobile phone it is almost like having a card to get out of poverty in a couple of years.” So says Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the micro-credit provider, Grameen Bank, and its hugely popular mobile phone offshoot in Bangladesh, Grameen Phone.
Dakar
As world leaders call for the benefits of new technologies to be shared more evenly around the globe, the reality on the ground in West Africa is a stark reminder of just how much work remains to be done.
Latin American banks will eventually channel remittances into small business loans and financial products, thus boosting the use of banking services in the region, officials said at the opening of the Latin American Federation of Banks (Felaban) conference in Miami on Monday.
The region received nearly US$41bn in remittances in 2004 and that figure is expected to surpass US$55bn this year, but only 10% will be channeled through the financial system, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) president Luis Alberto Moreno said at the conference's opening speech on Monday.
