Bank of Khartoum, the oldest and largest bank in Sudan, was named a finalist in the Islamic Microfinance Challenge. The bank uses profit sharing as its model for working with farmers. Instead of collecting interest on loans, which would not be permitted by Sharia law, Bank of Khartoum receives a portion of farmers' profits when harvests are complete.
The Intel® She Will Connect program aims to close the Internet gender gap, connecting millions of girls and women to opportunity.
Silicon Valley in California is still the world's centre of technological innovation, with a culture of risk-taking billionaires betting on the next big thing.
Jun 16, 2014 : Sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest growing region in terms of mobile subscriptions. But with many rural areas lacking basic telecoms infrastructure, there are ample opportunities for investment. The FT's Vanessa Kortekaas assesses the risks and rewards.
Women entrepreneurs in Africa have historically had more limited business networks than men. With advances in technology reaching around the world, there is a growing opportunity to use technology to break this divide. Francisco Campos, an economist at The World Bank and thematic leader on gender and entrepreneurship in the Africa Gender Innovation Lab, discussed how an initiative in South Africa is using a business-to-business online marketplace to expand access to markets for emerging firms.
While tech entrepreneurship continues to be dominated by men, women appear to be playing a larger role in the crowdfunding ecosystem. There is a growing list of influential women leading the crowdfunding industry. This video features a panel discussion about the crowdfunding industry.
Among the best investments we can make is in girls' education. At an event at the World Bank Headquarters, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, Former US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and UN Women's Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka spoke on how empowering girls and women and investing in girls' education will improve their world as well as ours. #Womenwecan
Greece has been hit hard by the global financial crisis, but its small businesses remain ambitious and represent the country’s best route out of trouble. This video discusses how several SMEs have benefitted from EIB support.
Access to financial services has tremendous potential to improve prosperity and security - especially for women - if done correctly. The rapid growth of mobile technology has removed some of the barriers to finance and resulted in getting more traditional financial actors involved - or at least considering products - for those in hard to reach communities, according to Mary Ellen Iskenderian, president and CEO of Women's World Banking.
The Brazilian government-owned bank, Banco do Brasil and Visa, introduced Visa Agro in 2007, a program that gives farmers access to a government-supported line of credit. The loans enable farmers like Sérgio Zimmerman to buy equipment and supplies that help him grow his business and the Brazilian economy.
