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Excerpt: Every weekend Hilario Amador makes the short journey to the city centre of Zacatecas where he deposits 120 pesos with Patrimonio Hoy, a self-help building scheme run by Cemex, Mexico's largest cement company.

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Thanks to Pablo Halkyard at PSD Blog for this article.

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Excerpt: With malaria spread across southern Mozambique, executives at the international mining company Billiton expected some workers to call in sick as it began building a massive new aluminum smelter amid the cornfields here. What they did not expect was that nearly one in three employees would fall ill — 6,600 cases in just two years. And they certainly did not expect 13 deaths, not after the company had built a medical clinic, doused the construction site with pesticides and handed out bed nets to thwart malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

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Excerpt: Ecuadorian niche bank Banco ProCredit aims to increase its loan portfolio to US$115mn by the end of this year, up 57% on end-2005, CEO Pedro Arriola told BNamericas.

The bank's strategy focuses on strong growth in the small and microenterprises segment, a significant increase in its deposits base and development of a wide range of financial products, the executive said.

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BANKING institutions have been urged to start rural mobile banking services to attract more people into the banking industry and help the country instil a savings culture; much lacking in Uganda.

The service that involves making banking transactions through a combination of banking technologies such as Point of Sales Services, Automated Teller Machines, Mini-ATMs (Movable ATMs) and mobile phones does not necessarily require bankers to visit banks. (Read full article)

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Excerpt: Small businesses, which employ millions of Indonesians, could become major engines of economic growth in this cash-strapped country and help reduce poverty, the World Bank has said.

Indonesia's 15.7 million small enterprises make up more than 90 percent of all businesses and employ up to 60 percent of the workforce, outside agriculture, but their growth is hindered by access to credit and poor infrastructure, the World Bank's Indonesia director said in a report released Wednesday.

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Excerpt: The Grameen Foundation of USA, in collaboration with MTN Rwanda, is re-energising its Village Phone scheme to bring mobile telephones to rural communities where no telecom services have existed before.

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Executives in the cellphone and computer industries are fond of speaking about bridging the digital divide, the gap between people with access to technology and those without. But translating the talk into action is not easy. In addition, the benefits of high-tech gadgetry for the poor often are not evident.

How do you bring Internet access to remote villages in Africa? And are people's lives going to improve once they can get online? The GSM Association, a trade group that represents mobile phone operators in 213 countries, has a plan for the first question and responds with a resounding yes to the second. (Read the full article)

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Excerpt: Much has been written about the incredible strides India has taken since 1991, when it opened up its markets to foreign investors and slashed regulations. With 6 percent to 8 percent growth rates over the past decade, India has become a hot spot for investors, a dynamo in the outsourcing and high-tech industries, and a competitor for headlines with that other emerging economic power, China.

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Abstract: In an opinion piece, Yaw Sophism discusses Ghana's policy for remittances.

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Excerpt: Mobile phones are becoming commonplace enough in some of the remotest parts of the world, much to the delight of both private companies and public policymakers. For phone manufacturers and service providers, some of the globe's poorest people have turned out to be one of their most profitable demographic groups, while for international development agencies, the proliferation of mobile handsets is one key means to bridge the ever-increasing technological divide between rich and poor.

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