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Making Microfinance More Effective

Harvard Business Review

Personal savings, insurance, credit, cash transfers from family and friends and other financing mechanisms offer promising opportunities to create security and steady employment but they require a nuanced understanding of product design and the local market conditions in order to be effective.

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3 Things Driving Entrepreneurial Growth in Africa

Harvard Business Review

Fatigue may be setting in for some Western investors’ interest in African innovation, particularly those that have yet to reap rewards to brag about. Another reason is that investors are myopically infatuated with snazzy technology. Innovation in Distribution. Top of the Pyramid.

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Scaling Up Without Losing Your Edge

Harvard Business Review

Schumacher, one of the fathers of the Green movement, declared that "small is beautiful" and called for "a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful." Not if it also builds in a capacity for innovation and quick response — that is, pilot, perfect, scale up.