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The Middle East's first national microfinance bank opened earlier this week amid mixed reactions from local NGOs.

The National Micro-Finance Bank (NMB), launched by the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organisations on Monday, has been hailed as the first of its kind in the region. The project's other stakeholders include the King Abdullah II Fund for Development and members of the private sector.

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The male-dominated fishing industry in Cape Town is making room for Sahra Luyt and her association of fisherwomen, giving less fortunate women the chance to cast their nets towards a better life.

At the start of this century, a mere handful of fisherwomen were netting lobster along shores of the Cape Peninsula in hope of a better future. Ocean-blazer Sahra Luyt, 36, had been going to sea with her skipper and spouse Sedick Larney, 40, since the mid-1990s. "My grandmother always said 'get involved with what your husband is doing,' so it was just natural to be out there," she says.

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"The Nutrition Improvement Program, which focuses on the fortification of foods with vitamins and minerals in order to prevent disease and mortality due to malnutrition, is DSM's first initiative in the context of the 'Base of the Pyramid'. This is a new development in the field of sustainability to which the company will increasingly be paying attention. The 'Base of the Pyramid' concept involves the development and implementation of new, innovative business models in developing countries in order to profitably serve the needs of the four billion people living on at most a few dollars per day."

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Innovations is a new journal focused on the intersection of social enterprise and public policy. The following is an excerpt from an article in the first issue.  Check out Rob's post for more background.

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A poverty-relief project has been launched in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a program funded by joint investment from China and Germany.

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Tanzanian villagers have begun using an energy-saving method to sterilise their drinking water - leaving the water under the sun.

The piped water supply to Ndolela village in the central Iringa region is intermittent and even when it does flow, it is not clean enough to drink. When the pipes run dry, villagers get water from a dirty spring.

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Cambridge University's Program for Industry in association with the WBCSD and Oxfam has launched a Business and Poverty Program to examine the inter-relationship of business and poverty.

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The promise of phones that double as digital wallets is not new. Consumers in many Asian and European countries have bought everything from convenience store trinkets to subway tickets using their mobile handsets for years. But the idea has largely been a gadget geek's fantasy here in the United States.

Only recently have American banks and wireless companies begun developing mobile payment products. Now, the next wave of technology could wash ashore within two years.

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As Indian banks plan to march into rural India disbursing commercial loans and housing finance, they need insurance companies to keep in step in order to de-risk their borrowers and make their lending safer. The challenge and opportunity lies in moving to the bottom of the pyramid by providing flexible, affordable and easily available insurance to rural and semi-urban people, preferably through the involvement of state governments or through large companies (especially public sector undertakings), industry associations or NGOs and Self Help Groups (SHGs).

NGO sources say that there are two main causes of rural indebtedness—first, borrowing to fund marriages and second, losses caused by the vagaries of the temperamental Indian monsoon. There is no easy way to stop people from spending far beyond their means on weddings, but almost all insurers are working overtime to sell and design weather insurance products to make agri-business less risky.

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Venkatesan Vembu

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