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Sri Lanka's agribusiness companies have started a programme to get corporate executives to volunteer their services help farmers improve productivity, reduce waste and get better access to markets.

The aim of the programme, launched under the aegis of the National Agribusiness Council (NAC), is to get member firms to provide two executives who will visit rural farmers during their leave period and help solve problems, said Mario de Alwis, former president of NAC.

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OAK BROOK, Ill., July 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Opportunity International, a leading innovator in the microfinance industry, today announced the expansion of its microfinance school loans program to bring greater educational opportunity to poor children, especially girls. Microschools of Opportunity(TM) is a new initiative that provides loans to "edupreneurs" who open schools in poor neighborhoods where children cannot access public school for a variety of reasons.

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New York, NY (PRWEB) July 31, 2007 -- Acumen Fund, a leading catalyst for sustainable, scalable solutions addressing poverty in South Asia and Africa, announced today that it has made a $1.5 million equity investment in Ziqitza Healthcare Limited (ZHL), a Mumbai-based company commonly referred to as "DIAL 1298 FOR AMBULANCE" that is rolling out a nationwide network of Life Support Ambulance Service. DIAL 1298 FOR AMBULANCE is filling the vacuum in Emergency Medical Service (EMS) / Advanced Life Support Ambulance Service that currently exists in India's cities. Acumen Fund's investment is being used to support 1298's rollout of additional ambulances as part of its scale up strategy in Mumbai.

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In the shantytowns that surround Brazil's cities, plenty of peddlers and vendors say they could use a small loan.

The trouble for microfinance lenders -- who believe loans as small as $50 can help poor entrepreneurs grow business and climb out of poverty -- is that many would-be borrowers in South America's largest economy are already loaded with debt.

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The world's biggest corporations are scrambling to tap a market they have largely ignored for decades -- the world's 4 billion poor people.

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Global microfinance programs may not help reduce overall poverty in the developing world, new research shows.

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Extreme poverty in the world calls for a different kind of market-based solution, a business professor asserts.

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Once a month 28-year-old Ignacio Moreno (not his real surname) walks to a small storefront on Chicago's West 26th Street and plunks down $380. It's not the rent for his two-bedroom apartment, where he lives with his wife and two kids, but an installment payment on his dream home back in Mexico. A bakery employee who works the night shift since the family came to the U.S. illegally in late 2003, Moreno is paying for $10,000 worth of cement, gravel, and bricks for the four-bedroom house he's building on the outskirts of the Mexican capital.

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Nick Negroponte explains to Fortune's David Kirkpatrick how his effort to give poor children laptops took a giant leap by making peace with longtime nemesis Intel.

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A large majority of the poor in India are outside the formal banking system. The policy of financial inclusion sets out to remedy this by making available a basic banking ‘no frills’ account either with nil or very minimum balances as well as charges that would make such accounts accessible to vast sections of the population.

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