Newsroom

So far, companies such as Ericsson, Unilever, Total, Tetra Pak, Shell, Thames Water and EDF are participating with pilot schemes in Tanzania, Madagascar, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.
Geographically, much of the focus is on projects in Africa. However, the UNDP wants to extend the GSB initiative - which was spearheaded by the UN Global Compact, a voluntary corporate citizenship network - to countries in Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe.
While the business activities are commercial, not philanthropic, participating companies are structuring their projects in a variety of ways. For some, philanthropic funding does enter the picture, but as a pump-priming tool through which to develop pro-poor markets.
Story found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

Capitalising on our attractiveness for MNCs
PepsiCo’s announcement of in-vesting an additional $500 million into its Indian operations should not come as a surprise. PepsiCo, after all, is in the same warp as most other FMCG and durables’ majors in the world — the western markets are saturated and growth is slow to come by. As a result, they are looking at developing nations, such as India, for future growth. In the US, for instance, soft drinks sales grew just 0.7% last year. In that sense, PepsiCo is still better off. It is growing at a healthy 8-9% every year. But The Coca-Cola Company, that owns four of the world’s five largest soft drinks brands, grew just 4.4% last year. Unilever is growing at 5-6%, as is Colgate-Palmolive. Of course, their base is much larger, but growth is still not as easy to come by as it is in the developing countries. In India, Pepsi’s business has grown four-fold in the past five years and it now hopes to put on the boosters, to triple its revenues over the next three years.
Story found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

A way to help inventors in poor countries realise their ideas
The World Bank and the other usual sources of finance for international development say they appreciate fab lab's potential, but consider the project far too speculative. They prefer investing in proven technologies rather than in the process of technology development. Despite this, the labs may be able to spread without support from traditional aid agencies because they may be able to become economically self-sustaining quite quickly. When word of the lab in Takoradi spread, for example, people came from far and wide to use it. Relatively small amounts of venture capital-possibly provided by so-called microfinancing, which pools savings in poor countries to make tiny investments or loans to local enterprises-could help get fab labs off the ground. If that happens, says Dr Gershenfeld, a fab lab can probably be used to fabricate new versions of itself to keep up with the demand.
Story found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

So far, the spread of technology has depended on trade. Commercial routes between cities are feeding the expansion of mobile phone access while whetting the population's appetite for instant communication.
"It's allowing the very obvious entrepreneurial sprit of Afghans to come out and be expressed," said the State Department official. "(Telecommunications) has been a tremendous multiplier for the reconstruction of Afghanistan."
Roshan, the largest mobile phone company in Afghanistan, opened its doors in 2003 and signed up 50,000 people during its first year. By 2005, more than 300,000 people were on its network in 25 cities and eight towns. Roshan recently won the country's first international prize for a marketing campaign, "Light and Hope," for ads that cross ethnic boundaries with shared Afghan passions such as volleyball.
Story found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

African states could work closely with the private sector to modernise their weak financial service infrastructure, especially banking sector technology. This is crucial not only to improving access to formal banking channels in sending and receiving countries, but also to bringing a significant portion of remittance receipts into the financial system. State actions against money laundering and against funds suspected of financing terrorism have had a marked effect on remittances funnelled through informal channels. And a sizeable number of workers have increasingly resorted to official banking networks to remit funds. Investing and exploiting these financial resources judiciously could yield immense welfare benefits for African nations.
Stroy found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

The [Agri-Science Park] is a hub of public-private partnerships to enhance the development and commercialisation of science-generated technologies and knowledge through market mechanisms. 
The goal of the ASP is to help achieve ICRISAT’s mandate to develop agriculture in the semi-arid tropics. The ultimate objective is to reduce poverty and hunger, and also to protect environment. 
The ASP consists of an Agri-Biotech Park (ABP), an Agri-Business Incubator (ABI), Private Sector Hybrid Parents and Bio-pesticide Consortia, and the SAT Eco-Venture (agro-ecotourism). 
Story found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

Though far outranked by the manufacturing sector as a foreign-currency earner, tourism is a focal point of the country's strategy to reduce its high unemployment rates. Economists estimate that one job is created for every ten foreign tourists who visit South Africa.
Experts say tourism can be used as a development tool to bring the country's poor into the economic mainstream.
Story found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) has signed an MoU with Mysore-based Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) to promote small-scale food processing projects in African and Latin American countries. 
According to T C Venkat Subramanian, CMD of Exim Bank, the technologies developed by CFTRI are most appropriate, adaptable and affordable for developing countries. 
For overseas application of food technologies, CFTRI is bringing low cost long shelf life technologies. The CFTRI has developed many food processing technologies documented through traditional foods project. 
Story found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

A new vaccine tested in West Africa could save the lives of thousands of poor rural children who die each year from bacterial infections, a team of scientists reported yesterday.
The vaccine is a strengthened version of Prevnar, which has been given widely to American infants since 2000 and prevents rare but serious infections with the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterium.
In the third world, the same germ is a major killer, and the new vaccine, tested in Gambia, "exceeded our expectations," said Dr. Orin Levine, head of the pneumonia vaccine program at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, which backed the trial.
Story found here.

Continue Reading This News Entry

In Africa, as in many other parts of the developing world, China is redrawing geopolitical alliances in ways that help propel China's rise as a global superpower. China is courting other countries to support its plan to reassert political authority over Taiwan and seeking a counterweight against U.S. power in global bodies such as the United Nations. It's also thinking long-term, cultivating desperately poor nations to serve as markets for its products decades down the road.
Story available here.

Continue Reading This News Entry