Lorenzo Grandi is Founder in Residence at Startupbootcamp Amsterdam. In this post, he shares his experience in what makes a crowdfunding campaign successful.

More than 140,000 users of the mobile phone based bank account M-Shwari have been blacklisted for defaulting on loans.

While startup cities are just emerging, there are smart and sophisticated steps being taken to develop healthy entrepreneurial ecosystems across the African continent. I take a look at one such collaboration, LIONS@FRICA, that promises to set a new example of how the willing can better help in Africa.Despite substantial global investment over the years in developing Africa’s economies, a general consensus lingers that foreign investment there is not delivering as much as it could. One relatively new effort is making its mark by capitalizing on the tools and energy of tech startups to foster smarter entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Four years ago, while on a business trip, I came across a picture in The Economist that drastically changed my life. It was a picture of a 10-year-old Afghan girl being married to a 40-year-old Afghan man. I was of course aware that child marriages were an issue, but there was something about this picture that startled me and made me think. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. Why was this wedding taking place? What forces a “child” to be in such a situation? How and why would the family of the girl agree to this? I kept asking myself all these questions.

After that, I started thinking about all the problems women face globally, whether they involve child marriage, education, health, money, discrimination, violence, access to capital, the glass ceiling, and more. I chose to concentrate on financial problems women can encounter – not only because my background is in finance, but also because I truly believe that a lack of economic freedom is the root cause of many gender-related problems.stions.

My dream is to live in a world where every single individual has the choice, the opportunity and the possibilities to build the life they desire.  To make this dream a reality, I am leading two large-scale Strategic Initiatives in 2014:1.  An initial USD 10 million fund to invest in women-owned businesses globally through private equity funds www.thewomensfund.net2.  The launch of a DreamFutures securities program targeting at least USD 1 billion linked to various Women’s Empowerment Initiatives globallyBelow, I will provide you with additional details on both initiatives.  I also invite you all to become part of them.

India faces a major financial exclusion challenge. According to the 2011 World Bank Global Findex Survey, only 35% of Indian adults have access to a formal bank account and 8% borrowed formally in the last 12 months. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services for Small Businesses and Low Income Households (or “CCFS”) was tasked with formulating policy recommendations to close this exclusion gap while protecting the stability of India’s financial system and the safety of customers’ deposits. The CCFS report marks a big step forward in India’s financial inclusion deliberations. We evaluate the CCFS recommendations below, focusing our analysis on the most critical financial inclusion question confronting the RBI: how to regulate non-bank payment actors. We highlight several promising elements in the CCFS report, while highlighting two risks that warrant further attention.

Women in the UAE and the rest of the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region remain substantially under-represented in business because they lack the confidence, funding and knowledge to start their own enterprise, experts in Dubai said on Tuesday.
“Every day, women continue to find innovative ideas that can be transformed into profitable businesses, but many of them struggle to obtain the skills, support and resources,” said Raja Easa Al Gurg, president of the Dubai Business Women Council (DBWC).

Research shows that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute over 50 per cent of GDP in high income countries whereas, contrary to common expectation, the contribution is much lower in Middle and Low Income nations; Prof Lant Pritchett of Harvard calls this gap the missing middle. In Oman, much has been done to develop the sector, yet its contribution to GDP stands at 13-14 per cent.