Youth Entrepreneurship in Africa
Post originally written by Reeta Roy and published on Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Opinion Blog. How do we promote bottom-up entrepreneurship in emerging economies? This is the central question that we will be discussing this week at the Legatum Convergence—an …
Looking Beyond the Spreadsheets
Limuru, Kenya We were in Kenya last week visiting our partner, Equity Group Foundation. We spent the week working with them on expanding the current scholarship program. This meant reviewing costs from the first year of the program, developing assumptions …
Learning, Earning and Saving
Post originally written by Reeta Roy and published on Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Opinion Blog. Last week, I spent time talking and listening to more than 100 women and adolescent girls assisted by our foundation’s partnership with BRAC. This program …
Channels To Change: Accessing Financial Services In Sub-Saharan Africa
Opportunity International hosted a conference between the 8th and 9th of October 2010 in Washington DC, to share early lessons from its efforts to address poverty and hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa. A number of presentations at the conference focused on …
New Computer Wizards
Kampala, Uganda Our last stop at the end of our trip in Uganda was the BRAC Training Center in Kampala. To date, BRAC has logged over 24,000 training days for its national staff, who cover microfinance, livelihoods development, health and …
Young Businesswomen
Kampala, Uganda We spent time with a group of young women, between the ages of 19 to 22 years who have taken their first microfinance loans. They are members of BRAC’s adolescent girls clubs – the main delivery channel for …
Mothers Educate Daughters
Kampala, Uganda We met a group of BRAC microfinance members in Kibuli, a pocket of urban poverty within Kampala. This part of town is strewn with unpaved roads littered with garbage and faeces and lined with open sewers. The women …
Women Driving Change
Kampala, Uganda Today, we met with women who are members of a BRAC microfinance group in Bukalaza. This village is situated in a rural community about 1.5 hours drive north of Kampala. The women we came to know are creating …
Kampala, Uganda
This week, Lois Juliber, Chairman of the Board of our foundation, and I are spending time in Uganda with our partner, BRAC. Our partnership is scaling BRAC’s microfinance multiplied program across Uganda and is benefitting more than 1.8 million Ugandans. …
Savings Groups in Remote Tajikistan
Kulyab, Tajikistan This visit to our Aga Khan Foundation Savings Group program in Tajikistan has been an eye-opening experience on the challenges facing Tajiks who live in remote areas. Tajikistan is a country that has persistent poverty and ranks last …
